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Yasuní National Park (Yasuní) in Ecuador is a major protected area within the western Amazon, yet it faces threats emblematic of those facing the entire region. For example, oil and gas concessions now cover vast areas, even overlapping protected areas and titled indigenous lands. However, numerous major threats confront the ecosystems of this region-including hydrocarbon and mining projects, illegal logging, oil palm plantations, and large-scale transportation projects under the umbrella of IIRSA (Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America). Indeed, it is still possible to walk continuously through mega-diverse forest from southern Peru to southern Venezuela-a distance of ∼2,000 kilometers-without crossing a single road. The western Amazon is one of the world's last high-biodiversity wilderness areas, , a region of extraordinary species richness across taxa – where large tracts of intact forests remain. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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Establishment of the Tiputini Biodiversity Station supported by the US National Science Foundation–DBI-0434875 (Thomas H. Leakey Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and Primate Conservation, Inc. The US National Science Foundation, the L.S.B. The US National Science Foundation (Graduate Research Fellowship Program), Texas State University-Department of Biology, and TADPOLE funded SM. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: The Blue Moon Fund, the Conservation, Food & Health Foundation, and the Forrest and Frances Lattner Foundation funded MF. Received: ApAccepted: NovemPublished: January 19, 2010Ĭopyright: © 2010 Bass et al. PLoS ONE 5(1):Įditor: Andy Hector, University of Zurich, Switzerland (2010) Global Conservation Significance of Ecuador's Yasuní National Park. Citation: Bass MS, Finer M, Jenkins CN, Kreft H, Cisneros-Heredia DF, McCracken SF, et al.