🌲 Yasuni National Park

Yasuní National Park is a protected area comprising roughly 10,000 km2 (3,900 sq mi) between the Napo and Curaray Rivers in Pastaza and Orellana Provinces within Amazonian Ecuador. The national park lies within the Napo moist forests ecoregion and is primarily rain forest. The park is about 250 km (160 mi) from Quito and was designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve along with the adjacent Waorani Ethnic Reserve in 1989. It is within the ancestral territory of the Huaorani indigenous people. Yasuní is also home to two uncontacted indigenous tribes, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane. Many indigenous people use the riverways within the park as a main mode of travel. Several waterways in the area are tributaries that lead into the Amazon River, including blackwater rivers high in tannins boasting vastly different floral composition than the main riverways. The spine-covered palm, Bactris riparia, and aquatic plant Montrichardia linifera typically line the edges of these slow moving rivers, often referred to as Igapós.