What have to do a Polish, the czar Alexander III and a polar bear with the creation of the Manu National Park? Everything, as a matter of fact. At the end of the 19th Century, a Polish zoologist was taken as a spy and incarcerated. To gain his liberty, Jan Kalinowski had to travel to Siberia in order to hunt and dissect in an attack posture a polar bear, and give it to the czar as a gift.

These events, along with the excesses of the czarist government, made Kalinowski to take the decision of flee from those cold lands and find refuge in Peru, more precisely in Cusco, where he will get married very soon. Penetrating into the forest, he dedicated himself to explore the flora and fauna of the region. Celestino, one of his 18 sons, was the one that accompanied him through many expeditions and the one who learned better is father’s skills.

For many years forgotten, although it witnessed cruel battles, boundless ambitions and defeated armies, Manu was almost intact when Celestino Kalinowski, following his father’s steps, arrived to study its fauna and flora, and in short time his collections reached different universities and museums of United States and Europe.

It was in the 60’s that a landing road was built along with a sawmill at Manu, deeds that made Celestino Kalinowski to call the attention about the risk that implies to let the wood to be exploited on that zone. Thereby, in 1968, he contributed in the election of Manu as the first National Reserve of Peru. Later it became National Park and did not stop as far as being the Manu Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage. After the death of Celestino Kalinowski, Peruvian Government named him as “The Father of Manu”. All this events probably would not have happened if a man was not apprehended in the 19th Century and sent to Siberia searching for a polar bear.