Manu Wildlife Center is an ecotourism project that saves pristine rainforest previously scheduled for timber extraction and market meat hunting.

The Center is located outside the eastern border of Manu National Park by the northern border of the new, 400,000-hectare Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, a national protected area.

The Center successfully has taken control of timber concessions and used them for tourism and conservation purposes. The lodge staff maintains a presence and directly protects the area, which is the largest uninhabited section of a major river in Amazonian Peru.

The lodge, which has 24 double occupancy bungalows with hot water showers, flush toilets, overlooks the 350 meter wide Madre de Dios River. The primary attractions for visitors are the world’s largest and most visited Tapir clay lick, the world’s most visited large macaw and parrot clay lick, two large oxbow lakes harboring families of Giant Otters, two canopy platforms at 100 and 130 feet above the ground, and 10 species of monkeys.

Tourists from other local lodges pay to observe the macaw clay lick from the Center’s large, floating observation blind. In December 2002, Conde Nast Traveler Magazine called the Center “the most intense wildlife experience in Amazonia”.