Can jaguar tourism save Bolivia’s fast dwindling forests?

She has a grand vision for scaling up the ecotourism model across the region using San Miguelito as a demonstration project.

“This area is known as the cereal belt of Bolivia meaning the majority of the neighbors have cleared their forests for agriculture, making this small protected area with a fragmented agriculture landscape a refuge for a vast majority of the wildlife in Santa Cruz,” she said. “We are trying to transform an existing problem in the region into an opportunity, through a new ecotourism approach.”

Holzmann says she hopes landowners in the future will change their perspective of a “jaguar problem” to a “jaguar opportunity.” To do this, she has signed agreements with the provincial and local governments to create “La Ruta del Jaguar” (The Jaguar’s Path), an eco-ethno-touristic initiative that uses the jaguar as a traditional symbol to promote tourism and other income opportunities for local communities.

“This project aims to build understanding and appreciation of the value of this species from the cultural, social, political and economic standpoints. It focuses, on the one hand, on educating and informing people affected by jaguars of the existing strategies of mitigation and prevention of human-carnivore conflict,” she said. “‘The Jaguar’s Path’ uses the image and presence of the emblematic species to create visible, new, profitable opportunities that generate compensation for cattle loss.”

One form of compensation comes via extra income for indigenous communities through traditional handicrafts and showcasing their traditional culture. Holzmann says these efforts are instilling local pride in knowing jaguars are still around.

“The project also provides a real and practical example that co-existence between people and jaguar can generate more profit for them than illegally killing,” she said. “I also try to rescue the ancestral culture where people used to have admiration for the jaguar.”

Ecotour operator McPhee says the opportunity in Bolivia is even bigger than San Miguelito or Santa Cruz.

“Bolivia is one of the most underrated yet amazing wildlife-watching destinations on the planet. We also have some of the most intact ecosystems on the planet like the Amazon rainforest of Madidi National Park as well as the world’s last pristine Gran Chaco forests of Kaa Iya National Park, which remains one of the best destinations to observe jaguars, tapirs and pumas,” he told Mongabay. “Birdwatching especially in the country is neglected, which is crazy considering it’s in the top 10 countries in terms of species count and hosts critically endangered endemic blue-throated macaws and red-fronted macaws.”

McPhee also says locals must benefit from conservation for it to be sustainable.

“To convince locals and governments to protect wildlife, ecotourism must thrive,” he said. “We also need to combat the rampant threats facing the wilderness areas such as wildlife poaching for their body parts and certain road and dam projects.”

Poaching, industrial agriculture, and infrastructure are indeed a danger for Bolivia’s wild areas. While the Bolivian government has in recent years presented itself on the international stage as a protector of biodiversity, nature, and marginalized social groups via gestures like The Law of Mother Earth, it has at the same time approved a torrent of mining and road projects, encouraged the rapid expansion of agribusiness, and undermined conservation efforts in some of the country’s most important protected areas and indigenous territories.

That leaves places like San Miguelito all the more important to stewarding Bolivia’s wildlife and wild places.

“If you look at satellite images of this area since the 1980s, it’s clear that San Miguelito has become a ‘Noah’s Ark’ for jaguars and other wildlife,” Holzmann said.

“We’re doing all that we can to save it,” Larsen added.