THE TAMBOPATA NATIONAL RESERVE (TNR)

Tambopata Eco Lodge is situated within the Tambopata National Reserve (TNR) and is on the edge of the Bahuaja Sonene National Park, creating an immense area totaling more than 3,000,000 acres of sub-tropical moist rainforest.

The original Tambopata Candamo Reserved Zone (TCRZ) was created by a ministerial resolution in January 1990 as a step towards a larger policy of land management in the area and to protect the land whilst it was properly surveyed to determine the best land-use for it. The status of Reserved Zone gave the area greater protection than it had before, though a number of factors came into play from 1990 undermining the whole process begun by the Institute of Natural Resources (INRENA) who manage the area.

One of the land-use proposals put forward was for a national park to protect the watershed of the Tambopata and other rivers and their natural resources from the encroachment of civilization. The proposed National Park was to be called Bahuaja-Sonene. The National Park status was given to 54 thousand hectares of the previous Reserved Zone in August 1996 - a blessing for nature, as Peruvian law at present restricts the entrance of people into such areas (except under very special circumstances).

On the 10th of September 2000, the Bahuaja Sonene National Park was created along with the Tambopata National Reserve as described above. The area also become part of a cross border park system, joining the Madidi National Park in Bolivia, and becoming the largest protected zone of tropical forest on the continent of South America!