National parks must be for people, plants, pumas – not Big Oil

Photo of a photo of a jaguar in Peru’s Amazon, one of many species living in the Sierra del Divisor National Park. Photograph: David Hill

The creation of the 1.3 million hectare Sierra del Divisor National Park in the western Amazon in November 2015 generated considerable elation and Peruvian and international media coverage. Logging, gold-mining, coca cultivation and narco-trafficking were highlighted by some media as ongoing threats to the new park, but why such failure to acknowledge what is possibly, in the long-term, the most serious threat of all? Read more.