Los Amigos Research and Training Center (CICRA)

ACA believes the world’s most diverse forests should also be its best-studied forests. That means transforming the Andes-Amazon region into a leading destination for scientists around the world. With our field stations and scholarship programs, we’re pioneering a new kind of tropical science—a research program that strengthens the local scientific community and shares data openly as it informs our conservation decisions.

Online database of Amazon research in Madre de Dios

ACA scientists have been working to compile a database of everything ever written about the biology and conservation of the Peruvian department of Madre de Dios. This list of 2,225 references dating from 1567 to 2005 can be searched online through Atrium's Andes-Amazon Bibliographic Search Engine.

About CICRA, the Los Amigos Biological Station

Our Los Amigos Biological Station, commonly known by its Spanish acronym CICRA, is a research center in lowland Amazonian forest at the base of Peru’s southern Andes. The main campus sits on a high terrace at the confluence of the Madre de Dios and Los Amigos Rivers, right next door to the 360,000-acre Los Amigos Conservation Concession (LACC).

Established in 2000, CICRA is now the most active research station in the Amazon basin, with an average of 25 researchers and assistants working at the station each day. The station has hosted more than 160 research projects in botany, conservation biology, geology, hydrology, and zoology, as well as biological inventories of more than 30 types of organisms. Most research visitors at Los Amigos are associated with universities in Peru or abroad, and many receive funding through ACA’s and ACCA’s scholarship programs.

CICRA is also a leading training site for young Amazonian scientists and conservationists. In addition to muddy-boots field experience in the LACC, these young scientists benefit from regular presentations by visiting scientists, involvement with the station’s long-term ecological monitoring program, specialized training as part of field courses, access to a large scientific library, and immersion in a vibrant scientific community.

CICRA at a Glance (updated July 2008)

Years since establishment: 8
Research projects hosted to date: >160
Number of grants awarded to work in Los Amigos: 120
Taxonomic groups inventoried to date: 31
Species recorded to date: 4,304
Average number of researchers and assistants in residence daily in 2006-2007: 27
Percentage of researcher-days in 2007 accounted for by Latin Americans: 70%
Peer-reviewed papers based on work at Los Amigos: 59
Undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral theses: 11, 14, and 6
Number of field courses hosted at Los Amigos in 2007: 12
Miles of trails: >60

Facilities

CICRA offers visitors the resources necessary for cutting-edge science in tropical wilderness, including:

Accommodations and dining facilities for up to 60 visitors
Spacious labs and offices
A lecture hall and scientific library
A resident PhD-level science director
>30 miles (50 km) of well-maintained, georeferenced trails
A 200-foot observation tower
A useful plant garden with more than 600 marked plants
Satellite Internet access
Access to online scientific literature and databases
A digital database of plant species collected on site
In-house field guides to local plant and animal communities

Two smaller satellite stations (CM1 and CM2), each with its own laboratory and lodging, are 2 miles and 15 miles from the main station.

Find information on scholarships for research at CICRA »
Find out more about CICRA on the ACCA site »
See a photo-guide of medicinal plants from the garden at CICRA (PDF) »

Courses

The Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research (ACEER) offers field courses at Los Amigos. These courses combine ACEER’s long experience directing courses in Peru with CICRA’s unmatched infrastructure in the Amazonian wilderness.

From 2002 to 2007, the station hosted 19 field courses, ranging from introductory courses on Amazonia to specialized courses on plant identification, ornithology, and arthropod biology. In addition, each week CICRA hosts Science Saturday, a science education program for schoolchildren from the nearby community of Boca Amigos.

More than science is going on at CICRA—learn about the Los Amigos Art Program.

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Researchers with a captured tapir that they’re about to fit with a radio collar. Photo: Mathias Tobler

Lab at CICRA. Photo: Nigel Pitman

Seed pods and field notebook. Photo: Raechel Running

Researchers study in a palm swamp at CICRA. Photo: BRIT