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By far Ecuador's largest national park, Yasuni ($10) encompasses just under 10,000 square kilometres of tropical rainforest around the basins of the rios Tiputini, Yasuni, Nashino and Curaray. The gap at the western end, in the shape of a giant horseshoe, was made into a reserve for the Huaorani people ( Reserva Huaorani ) in 1990, a 6000-square-kilometre buffer zone preventing colonization and oil exploitation from the west. The Yasuni reserve is part of the "Napo Pleistocene refuge", an area of rainforest that is thought to have survived the ravages of the ice age, allowing rainforest species to thrive and diversify, generating scores of endemic species - it's theorized that this is why the Amazon rainforest is much more biodiverse than its African and Asian counterparts, as they didn't have comparable refuges. In fact, Yasuni claims almost sixty percent of Ecuador's mammal species , including 81 species of bat, as well as larger animals, such as jaguars, ocelots, tapirs, twelve primate species and aquatic mammals, like pink freshwater dolphins, manatee and giant otters. Over 520 bird species have been recorded, including harpy eagles and sunbitterns, and one recent botanical study found 473 tree species in only one hectare, which is thought to be a world record. Most of the reserve consists of dry upland humid tropical forest ( tierra firme ), but other life zones include seasonally flooded forest ( varzea ) and permanently flooded igapo swamp forest . Even today, scientists believe they've only scratched the surface of identifying all life here, with hundreds of species yet to be discovered. Because of Yasuni's importance, UNESCO was quick to declare it an International Biosphere Reserve in 1979, two months before its official creation, to strengthen its position as protected land before oil companies could start prospecting. Despite this, the park is under attack from several of them, and roads have already been built into the protected areas. At Pompeya , barges ferry oil vehicles across the Rio Napo to a gravel road, known as the Via Maxus after the oil company that built it, which cuts right through the northern arm of the park for 150km. Even though entrance to the reserve here is monitored to allow in only oil-workers and indigenous groups - three small Huaorani communities live inside it - in order to prevent settlers from colonizing the forest, the road destroyed fifty salt pans, centres of animal activity, and was built of contaminated waste material. Nor is this only source of concern: as many as four oil companies are operating inside the park, one of them routinely dumping 400-500 barrels per day of waste drilling water. The damage hasn't only been environmental, as the Huaorani living in and around the reserve have suffered from interference from oil companies, who have exploited community divisions, spoiled hunting grounds and polluted water supplies.
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