Which Ecuadorian national park in the Amazon is famous for exceptional biodiversity?

Yasuní National Park is the Ecuadorian national park in the Amazon famous for exceptional biodiversity.

Yasuní lies in Ecuador’s eastern lowlands between the Napo River and the Curaray River. It protects roughly 9,800 square kilometres of rainforest and is part of a larger landscape that includes Indigenous territories and the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve. Scientists regard the region as one of the biologically richest places on Earth.

The park contains flooded forests, terra firme rainforest, lakes and rivers. Research has recorded extraordinary numbers of trees, amphibians, birds and insects in relatively small areas. Yasuní is also home to Indigenous peoples, including Tagaeri and Taromenane groups living in voluntary isolation.

The park became internationally known through the Yasuní-ITT Initiative, a proposal to leave major oil reserves underground in exchange for international contributions. The initiative was discontinued in 2013, but conservation and oil-development debates continue. Yasuní is distinct from Colombia’s Chiribiquete National Park, which is outside the Amazon region of Ecuador.