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ENVIRONMENTAL
EDUCATION: A PARTNER IN THE SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF VICUÑA IN ARGENTINA.
VILÁ, BIBIANA.
Proyecto MACS. Universidad Nacional de
Luján, ruta 5 y 7, (6700) Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
blvila@mail.unlu.edu.ar
The vicuña (Vicugna vicugna,
Camelidae) possesses a fine fleece, highly valued for luxury textiles.
Unsustainable harvesting practices brought the species close to extinction by
the 1960s. After 3 decades of conservation, the recovery of some populations
has led to conflicts with pastoral communities, whose livestock compete with
vicuña for forage resources. As a result, vicuña in many communities are less
appreciated now than earlier, when they were perceived as “endangered”. In
Cieneguillas (a town in north western Argentina, with a high density of wild
vicuña ), we adopted an environmental education (EE) approach in an attempt to
give the local community the tools they needed to turn a “problem” of vicuña
grazing into an “opportunity” to gain a financial return from harvesting the
fibre. Outcomes of the EE were: a) involvement of the community in fibre harvest
activities, b) positive attitude to the presence of wild vicuñas, c) over 100
campesinos trained in captures, d) incorporation of vicuña management in village
school activities - drawings, stories and “coplas” (traditional songs) e) 83
teachers in 18 villages trained in EE techniques; f) a book on regional EE
written and given free to teachers and schools.
BEHAVIORAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF VICUÑA (VICUGNA VICUGNA) AND
GUANACO (LAMA GUANICOE)
UTILISATION IN THE ANDES
BONACIC, CRISTIAN; Gimpel,
Jessica; Macdonald, David; Goddard, Pete
A sustainable use
programme for the vicuña and guanaco, based on the principle of harvesting their
fleece, in vivo, in the wild or by captive breeding is being investigated
and promoted in South America as an alternative source of rural income. Capture,
shearing and breeding in captivity pose many new challenges to the repertoire of
physiological and behavioural adaptations of both species. Management systems
were evaluated in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina using physiological and
behavioural indicators. Comparisons showed that cortisol concentrations, rectal
temperature, blood glucose levels and blood biochemistry values are all altered
to varying degrees by human management. Chronic stress and death are a danger if
preventive measures are not integral to the management system. Visual contact
between handlers and the animals causes more accidents. The shearing process
causes increased heart rate and handling problems that may be ameliorated by the
use of a blindfold. Transport systems for live animals are also a major stress,
resulting in injuries and mortality if the animals are restrained or travel long
distances. This paper provides a holistic analysis, using the methodology Hazard
Analysis Critical Control Point, to establish improved protocols for handling
and management.
EVALUATING THE INFLUENCE OF EL NIÑO SOUTHERN
OSCILLATION CLIMATIC CYCLES ON VICUÑA (VICUGNA VICUGNA) HABITAT QUALITY
IN THE CHILEAN ALTIPLANO
LAKER, JERRY¹; Herreros de Lartundo, Jorge²; Muñoz, Alejandra³; Bonacic,
Cristian4; Gordon, Iain5.
1 Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen. AB15 8QH, UK. Email:
j.laker@macaulay.ac.uk 2 Corporacion Nacional Forestal (CONAF), Tarapacá, Chile.
3 Fauna Australis, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. 4
CSIRO, Townsville Australia.
Following the introduction of protection measures for vicuña
in the Chilean altiplano, the population recovered from 2,500 in 1975 to more
than 26,000 in 1990. Since that peak, numbers have been steadily falling. The
most recent population census, in 2003, recorded 15,000 individuals. With recent
development of management systems for capture, shearing and release of wild
vicuñas, it is important to evaluate the conservation risk, given that this
population has apparently not stabilized. Previous studies by Bonacic et al.
indicated that density-independent factors (primarily climate) appear to
have an important impact on vicuña population biology. The present study
investigates the interaction between variation in habitat quality and vicuña
reproductive success. Using satellite imagery (NASA-AVHRR and SPOT VEGETATION) a
detailed picture of biomass distribution, and resource phenology was prepared
for the study zone since 1981. This clearly shows the profound influence that El
Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate cycles have on altiplano vegetation.
There are strong indications that the alternating 4-7 year cycle of drought and
rain has interacted with local herbivore distribution and abundance, and
possibly contributed to the observed fall in vicuña numbers, which occurred
primarily in more marginal (sink) areas of available habitat.
CHALLENGES FOR LINKING VICUNA CONSERVATION AND
BENEFITS FOR LOCAL PEOPLE
RENAUDEAU d'ARC, Nadine; Lichtenstein, Gabriela
School of Development Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK,
n.d-arc@uea.ac.uk (NRD). Instituto de Geografia, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras,
Universidad de Buenos Aires/INAPL/CONICET, CP 1406, Buenos Aires, Argentina,
glichtenstein@fibertel.com.ar (GL)
Vicuna is a wild South American camelid distributed in the high Andean Region
of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Perú and Ecuador. Vicuna fibre is as fine as silk
and is highly valued in international markets. Under CITES and the Vicuna
Convention, exploitation of vicuna populations are controlled and regulated, and
commercial use of fibre is only allowed if obtained from live-shorn vicunas.
Much attention has been given to the different techniques to manage vicuna and
obtain its fibre, but very little attention to vicuna management issues
concerning local people. This paper identifies these issues by exploring two
different systems: vicuna management in the wild by community groups in Bolivia
and captive management of vicuna by individual producers in Argentina. Our
analysis is based on primary and secondary data collected from 1997-2002 in both
countries. Data includes interviews, meetings to key informants and reviews of
documents from international to national and local levels. The paper suggests
that the distribution and scale of benefits, the nature of property rights and
the local capacity are key issues that emerge from vicuna management experiences
that need to be addressed for linking vicuna conservation and benefits for local
people.
LOCAL COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN
VICUÑA MANAGEMENT IN ARGENTINA
WAWRZYK, ANA; Vilá, Bibiana; Arzamendia,
Yanina; Yacobaccio, Hugo; Lamas, Hugo; Borgnia, Mariela;
Bonacic Cristian, Laker, Jerry.
Universidad Nacional de Luján, Buenos Aires,
Argentina (AW, BV, MB)
macs@mail.unlu.edu.ar. CONICET, Argentina (BV, HY, YA). Fundandes (YA, HL).
Pontificia Universidad Católica, Chile (CB).
Macaulay Land Use Research
Institute, Scotland (JL).
Many
populations of vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) have been recently reclassified
from CITES App. I to App.II, allowing controlled commercial exploitation. This
poster shows the steps taken to implement such a system based on sustainable
management principles. A management plan identifies costs, benefits and risks of
the activity before it starts,
and, in addition to practicality
and economics, should give importance to natural resource use rights, cultural
attitudes, historical background, ethnicity and environmental impacts.
The economic return must be sustainable in the long term and have a low impact
on the wider environment. Our objective in Argentina is to develop science-based
management plans for the wild management of vicuña, implement participatory
management tools, enhancing the cooperation between scientists and local
communities in the design phase. The traditional Andean “chaku” consists in a
drive, capture, shearing and release of wild vicuñas that minimizes the short
and long-term effects on individuals and populations. Our first experimental
capture with a community was undertaken in November 2003. Seventy vicuñas were
shorn, providing 16.5 kg of fibre. In the second (November 2004), 129 were
shorn, producing 27.4 kg of fibre.
The aim has been to balance income
generation with ecological sustainability and equitable sharing of benefits.
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION IN THE CONSERVATION OF WILD SOUTH
AMERICAN CAMELIDS
GARCÍA GÓMEZ,
JAVIER
Universidad
de Valencia, Calle: Av. Alcalde Reig, 8, 46008 Valencia (España)Email:
Javier.Garcia-gomez@uv.es
The conservation of biodiversity needs
to act at a number of different levels: the scientific-technical,
political-economic, and the social-pedagogical – all are important, and all
inter-related. Science and technology are fundamental to understanding
environmental issues; political-economic actions determine the management of
resources, tending to favour contemporary political interests. At the
social-pedagogical level, it is essential that the population understands basic
environmental concepts for appropriate environmental management initiatives to
be accepted and implemented. Achieving a change in attitude in respect to
environmental values is fundamental to reaching solid and lasting solutions.
At the 1992 Rio Summit, the role of education in promoting
sustainable development was made explicit by Agenda 21: “Education
is critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of
the people to address the environment and development issues”.
This poster presents the activities carried out within a European Union funded
research and development project for the conservation of South American camelids,
which took a broad multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving in the Andean
altiplano. We evaluated local teacher preconceptions about the altiplano
ecosystem and its vicuñas, and assessed different methods for improving the
effectiveness of the teaching-learning process.
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