The Tambopata River is a river in southeastern Peru and northwestern Bolivia. Most of the Tambopata is in the Madre de Dios and Puno regions in Peru, but the upper parts of the river forms the border between Peru and Bolivia, and its origin is in La Paz department in Bolivia. The Tambopata is a tributary of the Madre de Dios River, into which it merges at the city of Puerto Maldonado. The river flows through the Tambopata National Reserve. Seven types of flooded forest are recognized for this Reserve:

History

Between 1900-1912 during the Amazon rubber boom, companies like the Inca Mining Company, Tambopata Rubber Syndicate and the Inambari Para Rubber Estates Ltd operated on the Tambopata river. These companies were granted concessions by the government of Peru to develop land routes through the isthmus of Fitzcarrald. Like many other rubber extracting enterprises, these companies practiced 'hooking by debts.' Lucien J. Jerome, a British Consul in Callao at the time referred to the treatment of the indigenous in the Madre de Dios as “slavery pure and simple.”