|
 Local Management Groups Protect Biodiversity
Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, Peru
As the largest protected area in Peru, the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve accounts for almost 2 percent of the land area in Peru. The reserve is home to over 100,000 people within its boundaries and its resources are used by over 600,000 people in nearby areas. Originally established in the 1940s to protect the largest fresh-water fish – the paiche – Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve now protects the entire Pacaya-Samiria watershed. As the largest tract of flooded forest in the Amazon, the reserve protects a wealth of biodiversity and resources useful to the area’s human population. The immense tracts of forests of mahogany, moriche palm and tagua are home to large populations of macaws--including the endangered red macaw--and important game species such as white peccary, tapir, and deer. Endangered species such as the black caiman, Amazonian manatee, side-necked turtle, giant river otter, pink freshwater river dolphin also find refuge in the reserve. Most of the reserve’s large human population practices subsistence lifestyles and depends as much on the preservation of Pacaya-Samiria’s resources as the threatened wildlife.
Particularly in the wet season, when river levels rise and boat access to the reserve becomes possible across formerly dry areas, the Ministry of Environment’s staff of park guards has difficulty patrolling the reserve to detect and prevent illegal fishing, logging, and harvesting of river turtle eggs. The Nature Conservancy and USAID, through the Parks in Peril program, support ProNaturaleza, an influential environmental NGO in Peru, to work with local communities to form local Management Groups to help protect the reserve. Groups of ten to fifteen individuals receive license from the government to harvest a controlled amount of fish inside the reserve. In exchange, the groups patrol designated areas in the reserve and confront poachers. Depending on the terms of their approved management plan, some also collect eggs of threatened charapa and taricaya turtles from beaches exposed to poaching, raising the eggs in sandy enclosures, and releasing tens of thousands of turtles into the wild. Already, turtles are beginning to appear in areas where they had vanished.
Among the communities that ring the reserve, the desire to participate in Management Groups is very strong, with the number of management groups limited by the resource base, the approval process within the Ministry of the Environment, and by ProNaturaleza staff’s ability to assist in development of management plans. Members of the groups now enjoy access to better fish stocks, they do not have to travel as far in dugout canoes in search of fish, and they do not have to break the law to provide for their families. Deeply involved in the management of the resources they depend upon, the communities have become advocates for managing the resource base and serve as emissaries for better conservation of the reserve. ProNaturaleza is working with these communities to help them sell edible fish and arawana fingerlings for the aquarium trade. In selling directly to markets in the larger cities, profits that would normally go to “middle men” are transferred to the local communities who deliver these products to market. Management groups in Pacaya-Samiria are an innovative means of linking better conservation management to local livelihoods, and enabling conservation to pay for itself.
Read more about Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve... |
