Where: Peru, South America

What's at stake: Old-growth mahogany and cedar trees, rainforest species, indigenous cultures

Threatened by: Logging

Animals include: Giant otter, black caiman, squirrel monkey, macaw

• Peru holds 13 percent of the Amazon tropical rainforest within its borders. This Amazon Rainforest Frontier is home to 11 percent of all animal species and 8 percent of all plant species found on earth.
• The Amazon Rainforest Frontier is home to some of the world's greatest concentrations of old-growth mahogany and cedar trees -- highly valuable wood that's been the target of large-scale illegal logging.
• Within the rainforest, Peru's Manu National Park alone provides habitat for more than 800 kinds of birds (roughly 10 percent of all known bird species in the world) and 13 kinds of monkeys and endangered mammals such as the giant otter, the ocelot and the jaguar.
• The region is also home to some of the last remaining families of isolated indigenous peoples, including Mascho Piro, Yora, Matsigenka and Amahuaca. These nomadic Indians survive by hunting, fishing, collecting turtle eggs and growing root crops.
• The giant otter, called the "river wolf" by local people, is nearly six feet long on average, making it the largest species in the biological family that includes badgers, minks and weasels. It is found only in pristine, undisturbed regions of the rainforest, and thus is regarded as a good "bioindicator" of the health of the tropical rainforest it inhabits.
• In the southern part of Peru's Amazon rainforest is the smaller Tambopata Reserve, which contains the world's largest known mineral "clay lick." Each day, thousands of parrots and macaws converge on this towering cliff to dine on mineral-rich mud, which is believed to aid the birds in digesting acidic fruits.