Selva (Peru)
Selva (Peru)
Selva (Peru), one of the three principal geographic regions of Peru, with the costa and sierra. The selva, or tropical rain forest, is located east of the Andes in an area that comprises fully two thirds of the country's total landmass, but contains only 11 percent of the population. Most of its cultivatable land and population is located in the ceja de montaña (eyebrow of the jungle), a subregion of broad tropical valleys along the eastern Andean foothills. Although sparsely populated, mostly by Amerindians, the selva has long loomed large in the imagination of policymakers, who historically envisioned its resources and vast space as a potential panacea for resolving the nation's chronic underdevelopment.
See alsoCosta (Peru); Sierra (Peru).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Santos-Granero, Fernando and Frederica Barclay. Selva Central: History, Economy, and Land Use in Peruvian Amazonia. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998.
Schellerjup, Inge. Los valles olvidados: Pasado y presente en la utilización de recursos en la Ceja de Selva, Perú. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 2003.
Schellerjup, Inge. Redescubriendo el Valle de los Chilcos: Condiciones de vida en la Ceja de Selva, Perú. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 2005.
Peter F. KlarÉn