Revista "Bienvenida" - Turismo Cultural del Perú

It is said that when Rider Haggard wrote his immortal African adventure "King Solomon’s Mines" his hero Allan Quartermain was based on one of the most famous hunters of that time, named Frederick Selous. This legendary character became a noted conservationist in his later years and wrote one of the finest books about the African continent entitled "African Nature Notes and Reminiscences".

Celestino Kalonowski, accompanied by natives on his expedition on the river Manu.

This book may have been one of the things that, years later, inspired German doctor Bernhard Grziniek and his son Michael to fight to get the great Serengeti to be declared a National Park to save that marvellous scenery for posterity. Just like the Serengeti, the Manu National Park is also associated with a family and, as with the Grzimiek a father and son played pivotal roles in the story.

Celestino Kalinowski professional ornithologist

Jan Kalinowski was a Polish zoologist who arrived in Peru in 1887 intending to collect birds from the Peruvian jungle, which were considered at that time to be the most beautiful and varied birds in the world. The descriptions and stories of scientists and naturalists such as Humboldt, Darwin and Bates had stimulated the imagination of the young naturalist about the Amazon jungle, leading him to stop first at Cuzco and then at Marcapata. From there he explored and studied the fauna of the south eastern jungles of Peru, going on expeditions tot he remotest places, accompanied in many cases by local natives and was impressed by the abundance and variety of its fauna.

But at that time the rubber boom was reaching its height, after the discovery of vulcanization by Charles Goodyear in 1839 demand had multiplied vastly and all eyes were turned towards the Amazon, which was the only known source.

The effects were immediate, with hundreds of people claiming different zones of the virgin jungle where the rubber trees grew, causing great damage to the flora and fauna, which were hunted indiscriminately by the rubber planters. This led to the Peruvian government sending the first scientific expeditions to the unknown jungle provinces of the south east, prominent among them being that mounted by Colonel Faustino Maldonado in 1861 to explore the river Madre de Dios; he produced a map of the entire course of the river.

This expedition and those following it met with innumerable geographical obstacles, especially the great mountain ranges covered with tropical vegetation, waterfalls and uncrossable rapids between the Lower Amazon, whose rivers run north east, and the Upper Amazon with its rivers running towards the south. However it was only in 1891 that a passage was found between the two river systems and exploration began of the rubber forests in the Manu area.

The creation on Manu National Park affected Kalinowski personally.

But fortunately, fifteen years after the discovery of this passage the rubber boom had ended with the implementation of rubber plantations in Malaya by the British. By the 1920s the Manu zone had been abandoned and throughout the following forty years almost nobody lived there, so its fauna was allowed to recover and reproduce.

It was this forgotten region that Celestino Kalinowski knew and visited, inspired by the stories told to him by his father and the natives since he was a child. Celestino was one of the eighteen children of Jan, he studied taxidermy and biology and, just like his father he felt a fascination for the jungle. Since his youth he has been travelling the Amazon region of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil collecting samples for the principal museums and universities of the world.

In the Manu jungle, collecting rare specimens for the universities of Yale and Chigaco.

But of all the zones with which he was familiar the most impressive was the area around the river Manu, because of its beauty and the abundance and diversity of species living there. But, at the beginning of the seventies there was a new threat to the area: the timber trade, attracted by the vast forests of cedar and mahogany. Kalinowski was alarmed and started a campaign to alert the authorities of the danger to the area posed by loggers and hunters. One of his letters was addressed to Felipe Benavides, then chairman of a recently created government agency responsible for nature conservation, in which he warned of the danger and recommended that a national park be created.

Despite these recommendations and the campaign started by Kalinowski, at first nothing was done. Fortunately, some years later fate intervened. On 1967 the famous English naturalist Ian Grimwood came to Peru at the invitation of its government to help to locate a future park in the Amazon basin; however after visiting many areas he came to the conclusion that there were few places left where hunting had not decimated large animals. When he was ready to return home he met Celestino Kalinowski, once more promoting his campaign, in Benavides’ office. As a result of this meeting Benavides encouraged the naturalist to delay his return and he went with Kalinowski to see Manu.

Three weeks later and astounded by the abundance and variety of the fauna he found there, he drafted the proposal for which Kalinowski had worked for so long. A year later the entire Manu basin was declared a national reservation and, in 1973, a national park. Four years after that UNESCO denominated the park and the reservation the Manu Biosphere Reserve. Finally, in 1987 a year after Kalinowski’s death the International Union for the Conservation of Nature awarded the status of World Heritage Site to one of the most privileged ecosystems on the planet.

Nevertheless, for Kalinowski recognition meant a total change in his life because since 1974 strict laws have prohibited all forms of hunting, depriving him of the means of subsistence he had been used to since childhood. What is certain is that thanks to Celestino Kalinowski, today we can see and enjoy one of the most beautiful places in the world - the pride of Peru.

Jan Kalinowski