Department of Madre de Dios

Madre de Dios (, ) is a department of Peru. Located in the country's southeast, it borders Brazil, Bolivia and the Peruvian departments of Puno, Cusco and Ucayali, in the Amazon Basin. It is also the third largest department in Peru, after Ucayali and Loreto. However, it is also the least densely populated department in Peru, as well as its least populous department. It has one of the lowest poverty rates in Peru. It is administered by a regional government. Its capital is the city of Puerto Maldonado.

Etymology

The name of the department is derived from the Madre de Dios River, ultimately a tributary of the Amazon, and named by ethnic Spanish colonists. It is a very common Spanish language designation for the Virgin Mary, literally meaning Mother of God.

Geography

thumb|right|upright=1.1|alt=Map of Madre de Dios showing tree-cover loss years, with forest remaining since 2000 in green and loss years shaded yellow through purple.|Tree-cover loss year in Madre de Dios, 2001-2024, from the [[Global Forest Change dataset.]]

The department is almost entirely low-lying Amazon rainforest. The climate is warm and damp, with average temperatures around [max.: , min.: ]. The rainy season is from December to March, when torrential rainfall causes rivers to swell and often overflow their banks. Annual precipitation can be as much as .

The north-western boundary with the Cusco Region is known as the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald, a series of small and low mountains that separate the Madre de Dios River and the Urubamba/Ucayali River basins.

Notable rivers in the Madre de Dios River watershed are the Inambari, Tambopata, Manu, Tahuamanu, Las Piedras (also known as Tacuatimanu River), Heath, Acre and Los Amigos.

Due to the vast size of the area and its low population density, rivers provide the best way of getting from one town to another. Human activity is invariably confined to riverbanks. A number of explorers have searched for the lost city of Paititi in the jungle within the region. A new road that opened in early 2011 through the area will connect Brazil and Peru for trade, and change the isolation of this area.

The only important highway is between the Peruvian cities of Puerto Maldonado and Cusco, away in the Cuzco Department. It is part of the newly built Interoceanic Road between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, passing by the border town Iñapari on the Acre river. Flights between Cusco and Puerto Maldonado remain the most common and quicker method of transport between the two.

From Puerto Maldonado a road about long leads to the mining town Laberinto ("Labyrinth"). A second road is between the village of Pillcopata and Itahuania (into the Manú National Park). It is a roughly -long single-track road that is hard to travel in the rainy season. It also has a dirt road to the native community of Infierno ("Hell"), where the Ese'ejas (or Guarayos) live. Their chief is Agustín Shapaja, who led the famous expedition (made into a TV special) to the Candamo. He was featured in the TV documentary El Candamo, la Ultima Tierra sin Hombres (The Candamo, The Last Land without Men).

Economy

Madre de Dios depends heavily on natural products and raw materials for its economy. There is virtually no manufacturing industry. The main agricultural products are:

Cotton
Coffee
Sugarcane
Cacao beans
Brazil nuts
Palm oil

Illegal gold mining is the only other large industry of the region, confined mainly to alluvium adjacent to the Inambari and Madre de Dios rivers. Significant deforestation has resulted due to this activity. Most gold miners use liquid mercury to extract gold particles from the alluvium. They often handle the toxic liquid mercury with their bare hands.

{|class="wikitable" border="1" style="width:35%;" border="1"

|-bgcolor=#EFEFEF

! Province

! Quechua

! Aymara

! Asháninka

! Another native language

! Spanish

! Foreign language

! Deaf or mute

! Total

|Manu

|align="right" |5,731

|align="right" |239

|align="right" |9

|align="right" |1,540

|align="right" |11,170

|align="right" |18

|align="right" |16

|align="right" |18,723

|Tahuamanu

|align="right" |897

|align="right" |166

|align="right" |7

|align="right" |74

|align="right" |8,870

|align="right" |94

|align="right" |15

|align="right" |10,123

|Tambopata

|align="right" |10,202

|align="right" |586

|align="right" |14

|align="right" |481

|align="right" |61,387

|align="right" |197

|align="right" |75

|align="right" |72,942

|Total

|align="right" |16,830

|align="right" |991

|align="right" |30

|align="right" |2,095

|align="right" |81,427

|align="right" |309

|align="right" |106

|align="right" |101,788

|align="right" |16.53

|align="right" |0.97

|align="right" |0.03

|align="right" |2.06

|align="right" |80.00

|align="right" |0.30

|align="right" |0.10

|align="right" |100.00

Culture

The region is the location of many ancient Inca ruins. Several indigenous tribes survive in the jungle of the Amazon Basin.

Places of interest

Amarakaeri Communal Reserve
Purús Communal Reserve
Tambopata National Reserve

Representation in other media

This area was the setting of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (1982), based on the exploits of Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald (1862–1897), a rubber baron from Iquitos.
In the science fiction novel Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar (2008), most of the story takes place in Madre de Dios. A time anomaly has opened and let a pack of prehistoric Thylacosmilus into the modern world.
The region is the subject of a memoir by conservationist and explorer Paul Rosolie, Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon (2014)
The region is the primary setting for the memoir Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon's Relentless Madre de Dios (2017) by Holly Fitzgerald about an ill-fated rafting journey in 1973.