Peru has a new national park

In January 2011, the Peruvian government established the Yaguas National Park.

It is enormous – 2,147,166 acres.  And it’s a safeguard and home to hundreds of species of flora and fauna AND has the ancestral lands of over 1,000 indigenous people living in the region. 

The park sits in a remote northwestern region of Peru.  It’s near the Colombain border, and it runs along the Putumayo River.  And it controls weather patterns in the United States.

The area has a history of exploitation – logging, mining and rubber production.  Needless to say, some of this has been illegal.  The indigenous people were forced to collect rubber from the forest under terrible conditions, facing murder, mutilation and systematic rape, according to the Field Museum.

But now, with the national park status, the land and people are protected.  

Additionally, so are 3,000 plant species, 600 bird species and over 150 mammal species in the area.  Many of these are threatened or endangered.   And over 300 fish species live in the various rivers flowing in and out of the Yaguas National Park. Species such as giant otters, woolly monkeys, Amazonian river dolphins and manatees live there.

South America is creating vast stretches of protected wilderness, so hopefully they are signs of both people and governments showing how important these regions of wilderness are, both for animal and human wellbeing.

In Tanzania, wildlife populations have really suffered in recent decades.

Needless to say, this suffering is due to human activities such as poaching, farming, and mining.

However, there’s good news which shows that community-based wildlife conservation can bring fast win-wins amongst all species great and small.

The Journal of Mammology published a paper in which scientists from the Wild Nature Institute show significantly higher densities of giraffes and dik-diks, and lower densities of cattle in a community Wildlife Management Area, rather than an unprotected control site. 

Before the Wildlife Management Area was established, the densities of wildlife and livestock were similar when both managed by the same authority. 

However, the data showed that the establishment of Wildlife Management Areas had positive ecological outcomes with higher wildlife densities and lower livestock densities, which met the researcher’s definition of ecological success.

Efforts to bring wildlife management under the control of local communities rather than central agencies have been made through the establishment of Wildlife Management Areas.   The idea is that several vilages set aside land for wildlife conservation in return for most of the tourism revenues from these areas. 

There are 19 such areas already in operation, covering 7% of Tanzania’s land area, and 19 more are planned. 

Hopefully this will provide an example to other countries they can follow.  Eco-tourism can provide an income for locals, and it’s the largest economic sector and money earner for Tanzania.  

Click on the elephants above for ideas of holidays in Tanzania listed through Responsible Travel

Canadian wildlife would surely be leaping for joy (if they can leap) at the news that the Budget 2018 will earmark significant funds to protect Canada’s nature, parks and wild spaces.

$1.3 billion will be invested over 5 years.  Preserving the country’s natural areas ensure that Canada will remain a place where people want to live, work, invest – and visit.  So protecting the environment and helping the economy can marry well.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in his budget speech to the House of Commons, “Canada is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.   It is up to us all to help keep it that way.”

Canada has pledged to protect 17% of her land and inland waters, and 10% of her coastal and marine areas by the end of the decade.   Countries are working to reach these global targets by 2020 around the world.                                                                  

The budget recognises the importance of private land conservation and $500 million from the government towards the $1 billion nature fund will encourage collaboration as provinces, territories, corporate and charitable organisations work together to conserve land and protect species at risk.

There is commitment to increase the federal capacity to protect species at risk, and there are new recovery strategies: expanding national wildlife areas and migratory bird sanctuaries, and establish a new network of conservation areas, working with provincial, territorial and – crucially – indigenous partners.

There are expanded measures to include Indigenous Peoples in creating and managing protective areas.  Indigenous governments have played roles already in creating protected areas across the country, from Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve of British Columbia’s northern coast to the Torngat Mountains National Park in Labrador.

This budget is being described as a game-changer for nature conservation in Canada.  It should support vital work to protect the habitats, animals and plants at greatest risk.   Canada has significant intact natural areas, and land trusts are specially placed to leverage the government’s investment to help slow or reverse species decline and mitigate the effects of climate change.

This move was welcomed by organisations such as the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

The Couchiching Conservancy has acquired over 700 acres of habitat-rich land.   It sits alone one of southern Ontario’s wild rivers.

The property includes over 4 kilometres of shoreline along the Black River.   This area is home to a number of species which are at risk, such as the Blanging’s turtle a species threatened by the loss or fragmenting of habitat, motor vehicles, and raccoons and foxes that prey on eggs, and the eastern hog-nosed snake, threatened by habitat loss and persecution by people.

It’s an important acquisition, because it creates a large corridor of wilderness which enables species to move from one area to another.   As the climate changes, this will be all the more vital for them.

Hundreds of donors enabled this purchase to happen, and there was also a major contribution from Ottawa’s Natural Areas Conservation Programme.    

This programme is a private-public partnership which aims to conserve land across southern Canada, and federal funds are matched by contributions raised by the Nature Conservancy of Canada and its partners who manage the program 

Here's more information about the Couchichong Conservancy:

Nature Ecology & Evolution have published research that shows the enormous value of Earth’s remaining intact forests on several levels:

Climate Change
Infact forests absorb about 25% of our carbon emissions from all human sources – if we destroy them, there will be far more carbon dioxide in the air which a) makes the climate warmer and b) can hardly be good for any of us to breathe in

Water availability
Intact forests ensure that local and regional weather remains stable, as they generate more rain than cleared forests which reduces the risk of drought.

Biodiversity
Intact forests have higher numbers of species who are dependent on forests and who have higher functional and genetic diversity

Indigenous cultures
Intact forests enable many indigenous groups to sustain their livelihoods and cultures

Human health
The loss of forest compromise the supply of species that millions of people rely on for medicinal purposes, and it drives the spread of many infectious diseases because humans come into closer contact with disease vectors.

Professor James Watson of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of Queensland says that not all forests are equal and forest conservation should be prioritised on their relative values. 

The researchers say we need to act while we still have intact forests left to save, before mankind destroys them all.

Global and national environmental strategies must retain the integrity of infact forest, and there must be more efforts to stabilise deforestation frontiers and stimulate restoration.

Policy interventions the researchers recommend include;

• Creating new standard metrics of intactness to raise awareness of the importance of forest quality and help target action to those areas most intact
• Embedding the intact forests concept in the UN Frameowrk Convention on Climate and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Reports to ensure the Paris Agreement’s commitment includes the protections of intact forests
• Supporting local and global policies which limit road expansion, regulate hunting, extraction and development on the one hand; and to help secure indigenous communities’ land tenure rights and invest in restoration and protected areas on the other
• Support efforts which restore and make degraded forests more productive, and conserve the intact systems which are at risk, rather than opening them up to activity

We need to start cherishing our forests and caring for them all.  They look after us; we need to look after them.