Chocolate as a Conservation Strategy

The most popular stories by our Spanish language service, Mongabay Latam, for the week of June 18- 24 include features in honor of Colombia’s World Cup team (Humboldt Institute created “Colombian Biodiversity Team” cards profiling the country’s most iconic wildlife) and in other news, Peruvian farmers in a region once dominated by narcotrafficking now seek prosperity through organic chocolate.

The image above, from the Humboldt Institute’s World Cup Biodiversity Team cards, depicts Colombian midfielder James Rodriguez as a harpy eagle.

Peru: Chocolate saves a community and a protected area from narcotrafficking

Near the Rio Abiseo National Park in the Peruvian Amazon, twenty years ago a group of farmers stopped growing coca and turned to organic cacao. Since the park’s inception, one of its objectives was always to support the development of local communities. Today the area is 40% more productive than the rest of the region, and the stamp showing that the cacao is sourced from a forest conservation zone increases the profits.

El Parque Nacional Río Abiseo ha conseguido como aliados para la conservación a los cacaoteros de San Martín. Crédito: Sernanp.
The Rio Abiseo National Park has made local cacao farmers conservation allies. Image by Sernap.

Colombia’s World Cup Biodiversity Team

The Humboldt Institute used the World Cup as an opportunity to create “Colombian Biodiversity Team” playing cards. The team is coached by a Hoffman’s two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni) with a jaguar (Panthera onca) and a harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) as forwards; an Apolinar’s wren (Cistothorus apolinari), an Amazon kingfisher (Chloroceryle amazona) a cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus Oedipus), a fer-de-lance pit viper (Bothrops asper) and a giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus) in the midfield; an Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus) and a little red brocket deer (Mazama rufina) on defense; and a brown spider monkey (Ateles hybridus) in goal.

lIustración: Giovanni Parrado, Instituto Humboldt.
Colombian midfielder James Rodriguez as a harpy eagle, and other teammates. Illustration by Giovanni Parrado for the Humboldt Institute.

Peru: the struggle to protect the world’s most extensive tropical glacier

The Quelccaya ice cap in Cusco, Peru, is part of the proposed Ausangate Regional Conservation Area that seeks to protect headwaters, high altitude peatlands and vulnerable species, such as the vicuña. After ten years of consultation, two communities approved the creation of an 81,000-hectare protected area.

El nevado Ausangate es parte de la cadena de glaciares que eran parte de la propuesta de ACR que se planteaba desde el 2008. Tras la consulta previa, zonas como esta tuvieron que ser retiradas. Crédito: ACCA
The Ausangate mountain is part of a glacial range first proposed in 2008. Image courtesy of ACCA.

Six new chirping frogs discovered in western Mexico

Researchers discovered six new species of chirping frogs in Jalisco, Colima and Michoacan states in Mexico. According to Mesoamerican Herpetology, they belong to “the most diverse and taxonomically complex group of amphibians in the new world” – the genus Eleutherodactylus.

Rana chirriadora de la Sierra Manantlán (Eleutherodactylus manantlanensis). Foto de Christoph Grünwald/HERP.MX.
Chirping frog from the Sierra Manantlán (Eleutherodactylus manantlanensis). Image by Christoph Grünwald/HERP.MX.

Venezuela: fires and invasions threaten eight species in the Aroa Sierra

Hunger and unemployment have caused invasions of the protected regions of the Aroa Sierra in Venezuela. Due to the passivity of the central government on the issue, there are ongoing claims of illegal logging, forest fires and farming that put unique species in danger.

Quema en La Puente, en la Sierra de Aroa, que casi atrapa a los observadores de aves del Global Big Day. Foto: Rafael Gianni.
Burnt logs in La Puente in the Aroa Sierra that nearly crushed bird watchers on Global Big Day. Image by Rafael Gianni.

Removal of anti-personnel mines opens the door to biodiversity discoveries in Colombia

Following the end of the conflict with FARC rebels, the removal of anti-personnel mines from the territories is generating excitement among researchers in the possibility of learning more about the areas’ biodiversity and discovering new species in these Colombian forests.

El ecosistema predominante en esta zona de Antioquia está compuesto por densas coberturas boscosas, que se conservan porque se encuentran en montañas con marcadas pendientes. Foto: Felipe Villegas.
Dense forest is the main ecosystem of the Antioquia region, which is sheltered by its steep mountain location. Image by Felipe Villegas.

 

You can read these stories in Spanish here.

This story first appeared on Mongabay

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