Peru Projects Home | Lima | Quince Mil | Puerto Maldonado
Quince Mil is located strategically between Cusco and Puerto Maldonado and is about 670 meters (2000 feet) above sea level.Studies of the flora and fauna of the region will be carried out along a magnificent elevational transect that starts with alpine ecosystems, such as the Cordillera Camanti pictured here, covered in snow at 4500 meters (about 13,000 feet) above sea level.Access is difficult and the area is one of three sites in the world that competes for record high annual precipitation.
Janovec chose this location because the region is covered by forests and forested mountains, such as the one pictured here. This area has never been explored and there are only a few plant collections registered from the region.With a base in Quince Mil, Janovec and the BRIT field team will explore these forests, local and remote, during the next five years. Local guides will be hired to help lead expeditions into the mountainous, forested landscape, such as the one pictured here.
The team has already begun the arduous task of establishing a project base in Quince Mil by renting and repairing two houses within the town. Janovec has also begun to develop collaborations and written agreements with the local government and community members.
The forests in the region above, below, and around Quince Mil are fascinating and mysterious.Janovec believes that the area harbors a world record diversity of plant species.On the first day of collections they focused on one family of plants, the Araceae, known as the “Aroid” family.They collected close to 50 species of this family in one relatively secondary forest.This is more species of Araceae that Janovec and team collected during three years of botanical exploration in the Madre de Dios River watershed. Janovec estimates that they will discover and document at least 5000 plant species.