1. Foundation Profile
 
General
The Fish Gen Database Foundation Peru has a wide range of offers, with emphasis on the following topics:- conservation and recultivation of all freshwater fish know globally and also the resettlement and the sale of recultivated brood stock and fish. A starting point for science and technology, which concerns itself with the conservation of the species and their biology. The provision of genetic material and also an international, scientific communication platform.

Corporate form
The foundation has the corporate form of a foundation under public law.

The headquarters of the foundation is in Loreto 865, in the City of Iquitos in the province of Maynas, in the Loreto Region of Peru.

Mr. Alois Glienke is the president; the administrator is Mrs. Rosario Del Castillo Torres and the vice president is Mrs. Gudrun Sperrer with Professor Magister Dr. Franz Lahnsteiner, amongst others, as scientific advisor to the research project. The president can draw on many years of experience in the area of fish cultivation and has well-grounded knowledge of this area with global contacts. The foundation is also financed and supported through donations, of course.

Planning of the financing
The project development costs, the laboratory facilities and also the aquarium installation are fully financed from our own resources. The proposal itself will be financed up to 100% with capital from the foundation. This means that business interests of companies and concerns from the trade can be avoided. According to previous calculations, the proposal will support itself by the end of the first year (2005%).

Objectives and visions
The strategic objective is to gather together a sufficiently sized pool of gene material and genetic material for all fish species globally and especially for those under threat so that survival of the species can be guaranteed by recultivation. By working together with leading research institutes, we have been able to create the scientific and technical requirements for the cryo-conservation of fish embryos. We successfully met this first objective in 2004 and have registered it as a patent.


2. Considerations of the foundation
Environmental protection and nature conservation are gaining steadily importance globally. The effects of climate catastrophes which we hear about every day in the media from all the regions of the world make it quite clear to us that we have to handle nature in a much more responsible manner.

3 of the 42,000 estimated species of fish existing on Earth die out every week. The causes for this are now almost so diverse as nature itself. Contaminated waters, climate change and killer algae which annihilate all animal life are only given an example here of the factors causing the dramatic dying of the species. Most people are neither know about these shocking developments nor are aware of them.

Widely differing institutes and environmental organisations have been making efforts for years to protect nature from increasing

contamination and destruction by man and to conserve it after developing courageous for protection of the species, sometimes working together with politicians.

Scientific research tells us that the origin of life is to be found in water, from which mankind developed during the course of evolution. The hope that resources from rivers, lakes and seas can provide an inexhaustible source of nutrition for the world population has also burst like a soap bubble because of overfishing, poisoning and contamination of the waters. Nevertheless, water and its inhabitants receive far less attention than they deserve.

Effective and long-lasting action must be taken against this !

The Fish Gen Database Foundation, in accordance with Article 5 of the 6th Session of the Conference of the Parties on Biological Diversity. It has set itself the task of not only protecting mammals, birds, reptiles, etc. living in the wild by globally naming the Living Earth Project, but especially also all 420,000 varieties of fish.

The name of our Fish Gen Database is our program and stands, on one side, for the way in which the species is maintained but which has not to be confused with genetic research, on the other hand in terms of its general meaning. The genome of each individual species remains untouched and unchanged. Furthermore, resources are created in a special form. These can be reactivated after the respective animal species has become extinct, can be reared true to species and then returned to nature.


3. Location
Iquitos was founded in 1747 by the Jesuit José Bahamonde. The city is surrounded by the rivers Nanay, Itaya and the Amazon.

Iquitos is a hot, exotic city surrounded by impressive greenery. It is a large city in the Peruvian primeval forest. The climate of this zone is tropical, hot and damp, with an average temperature of 28şC.

The dense primeval forest of Peru can give thanks for its name to an enormous river and to the life, illusions and legends brought with it. The Amazon carries the most water and is the largest river in the world.

Villages and towns, such as Iquitos, the capital city of the province of Loreto have developed along the shores of the Amazon.

The Peruvian primeval forest extends over an area of 80 million hectares and has an immeasurable variety of animal species.
   

4. Flora and fauna
The Amazon region is characterized, besides other factors, by its large biodiversity. The number of species actually to be found in the Amazon region is difficult to estimate since only a fraction of them have been discovered and described.

The number of species is thought to be five and ten million. Approximately 1.4 million of these have been described up till now: 750,000 of these are insect species, 40,000 are vertebrates, 250,009 are plants and 360,000 are microbiotics.

It is assumed that approximately a quarter of the living animal and plant species have their habitat in the region. The fish fauna is estimated at 2,000 species – more than all the other rivers of the world combined-

The vegetation in the Amazons is very heterogeneous. A rough subdivision of the most widespread forms of vegetation consists of: dense forests, open forests with palms, open forests without forest, forest with creepers and vines, dry forests, mountain forests (especially in the foothills of the Andes), flood-plane forests (Várzea), swamp forests (Igapó). There are also local formations such as: mangrove forests, forest-free savannas (campos naturais. Caatinga, etc.