The Forgotton Valleys: Past and Present in the Utilization of Resources in the Ceja De Selva, Peru

Peru specialist Dr. Inge Schjellerup, an anthropologist and archaeologist associated with the National Museum of Denmark, stumbled upon the isolated Huambo Valley on the eastern slope of the Andes mountains during field research in 1997. She was surprised to see widespread deforestation and human settlement in a zone that was supposed to be uninhabited according to the official map of Peru. Schjellerup launched an interdisciplinary study of this forgotten region with a team of archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists and geographers. The result of this work, The Forgotten Valleys, explores the effects of land use on the environment of the Huambo Valley over the past 500 years. Schjellerup's team discovered extreme biological diversity in the area, but the forests are under such accelerated destruction that some unknown species are possibly in danger of disappearing before they have even been discovered. Despite an increasing awareness of the need for preserving cultural and biological diversity in the montane forests, very few efforts have focused on a historical, diachronic aspect. The Forgotten Valleys thus explores how humans have gradually changed the environment in this region and how environmental change has thus revised human activities through time.