Paraguay

a permit is required to take specimens out of the country. The institute to consult is INRENA. The question ´how is one obtained is a more difficult one´. If you follow all there official rules the anser is usually ´NOT!´. Peruvian will take about a year to get the permits in a more or less cheap way and foreigners are supposed to pay extra money to the persons in charge so the papers are (all of a sudden) ok. There are two types of permits. One for export of valuable specimens for trade (big beetles) and one for research. Both require often impossible things like identification of all specimens ahead of export. For the research permit it is also required to send halve of all your specimens to the museum in Lima (including halve of the holotypes...haha..does this mean halve a beetle). The problem is that the people in Lima who make these laws don´t now much about collecting, biology etc, but just want take as much money as possible.
Anyway my advice is to contact INRENA and asks them for the permit and just pay them what they ask for it and do what they tell you to do.
August can be a good month to collect insects. You can collect insects yearround in good numbers. In the rainy seasons (feb and oct) and just after the number of beetles are usually some higher, but the differences are all that big. In august the river starts to get lower and this new land with its anual weeds can be very interesting for collecting.
The road from Yurimaguas to Tarapoto can be interesting for collecting. This goes from lowland yurimaguas (180) over some hills to Tarapoto (700m). This is not a reserve (yet) and thus doesn´t require extra permits. around km 34 they are building a new lodge. I´m not sure about the conditions at moments, but the basics are surely available. I´d like to go there some day myselve. They have found amazingly large diversity in frogs at this site so I don´t see why it could not be interesting for other groups as well.
Pacaya Samiria is of course also the place to go when in Yurimaguas. You´ll need some extra permits this. All with INRENA.
hope this helps you and your family.
greetings from Iquitos,
Rob 

Last modified on Friday, 13 June 2008