Tsimane

Situated in the heart of Bolivia, the National Park and Indian Reservation Isiboro Secure (TIPNIS) is home to some of the most amazing rivers in the world, often resembling rivers found in Montana and New Zealand. Tsimane's operational area is about 200 kms from Bolivia’s capital city La Paz and 470 kms from Santa Cruz. The National Park and Indigenous Territory is located in the Departments (Provinces) of Beni and Cochabamba. It is part of the Vilcabamba/Amboró Conservation Corridor, in the sub-Andean strip of the tropical Andes between Peru and Bolivia.

The climate is humid and the area's geography is characterized by a mountain range to the west giving way to large floodplains to the east. The most important rivers are the Isiboro and the Sécure, tributaries of the Mamoré, which flows into the Amazon basin. The protected area is also an indigenous territory, property of the Chimán, Yuracaré, and Moxeño ethnic groups.

The Tsimane operation is located on the north-west side of this magnificent park and is reached only by aircraft or boat. Every year a massive run of many species of fish from the huge Mamoré River occurs, a migration that can only be matched in terms of biomass by the never-ending salmon runs of Alaska. In terms of dynamics it can only be matched by the wildebeest migrations across the African plains. Dorado and other predatory fish follow these impressive schools; there are so many fish in the river that they literary change the colour of the water. The dorado and other migrating sabalo all spawn together several months later in the same area and as soon as the dorado hatch they start to eat the sabalo alevins.