FEATURE al wildlife trade in Bolivia I
n 2009 PSUK supported Asociacion Armonia, based in Santa Cruz in
eastern Bolivia, to conduct a series of public presentations against the inhumane, unsanitary and uncontrolled illegal wildlife trade in Bolivia. The project goal was to educate the Bolivian public on the realities of the illegal pet trade to motivate public and institutional support towards the enforcement of existing laws against the trade of Bolivian wildlife as well as wildlife brought in from neighbouring countries such as Brazil. Presentations were to be made in Bolivia’s five main cities – the capital La Paz, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Cochabamba, Trinidad and Tarija. The illegal trade of wild birds in Bolivia has been and continues to be the main threat to many parrot species. While Bolivia has created excellent wildlife protection laws which declare clearly that no one is permitted to trade Bolivian native wildlife without government consent and an authorized management plan, the illegal trade devastates parrot species with almost no law-enforcement. This threat with expanding agricultural land and ranching areas is driving trapping into the few protected areas in Bolivia. Asociacion Armonia in its conservation work with the Red- fronted Macaw and the Armonia/ Loro Parque Fundacion Blue-throated
Macaw conservation programme has been studying the extent and impact of the illegal pet trade in Bolivia. Their studies found that some 37,000 individual birds are trapped from the wild into the illegal pet trade yearly, including many large CITES protected macaws, and endemic and threatened species. One must also add the number of birds that die in the process of reaching the market- possibly another 10,000. Through these studies, they were able to take hundreds of photos of parrots in appalling conditions, suffering the blind eye of Bolivia’s law. Asociacion Armonia produced 18 panels on the illegal trade using some of these photos, demonstrating to the public the horrible situation and the threats to native wildlife. These panels were presented in 4 day periods in the five cities. The illegal trade campaign raised interest by several organisations supporting Armonia’s actions – the most important being the politically placed CITES coordinator Veronica Varga for Bolivia, who requested to work directly with Armonia for 2010. The campaign was expanded to include more locations in 2010 and various national organisations such as the equivalent of the British Bar Association in Bolivia have taken notice and have become supportive.
BIRD SCENE 23
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
