Tropical Mountains of Northern Peru

These are photos of some mountain scenery a few hours from Piura in tropical mountains of Northern Peru. Northern Peru along the coast is mostly dessert but as you trek inland a few hours the terrain becomes a tropical mountain oasis. As I treked for hours through the mountains, we came across banana tree forests that were filled with thousands of butterflies, waterfalls where we could take a refreshing rinse off, ripe coffee bean fields, and many plants that I had never seen before.

The sad thing is that the forests will soon be gone forever due to the massive deforestation that is taking place. From the summit of one of the peaks we climbed, we could see the whole mountain valley. It is safe to say that over 80% of the original forest that once remained has turned into grazing pasteurs and corn fields.

It is a tough thing to see because someday these lush mountains will turn into an arid climate and life here will probably change for the worse. I imagine that this kind of problem is taking place all across the world in developing countries.

I wish the problem could have a simple answers. People here are forced to think about here and now, food right now, cooking wood right now, lets cut down this hectre and burn it so we can plant corn and have goats and cows to make fresh cheese.

It´s hard for the people to think about sustainability when the education is poor, the people live in extreme poverty, and the political infrastructure of these villages are almost designed to be corrupted.

On a positive note, I got to see this beautiful place before it has self-destructed. I wonder what the beautiful scenery looked like about 50 years ago?