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Con quienes trabajamos

ECOAN Recibe el premio 2006 Partners in Flight

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation/US Fish & Wildlife Service Director’s Reception
 

La Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos ha recibido el premio 2006 PARTNERS IN FLIGHT que se realizó en el Hotel Hilton Portland and Executive Towers, de Portland, Oregon USA, por su contribución a la conservación de aves. La Ceremonia se realizo el dia 22 de Marzo del 2007 y a cuya ceremonia asistió nuestro presidente de ECOAN Blgo. Constantino Aucca.
El premio fue entregado por el PhD. H. Dale Hall, Director de U.S. Fish & Wildife Service, junto con el Phd. Paul R. Schmidt, assistant Director de Migratory Birds de U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

PRESENTATION

ECOAN started in 2000 as a modest grass-root effort aimed at preventing the extinction in Southern Peru of the very rare Royal cinclodes, Ash-breasted Tit-tyrant and White-browed Tit-spinetail. These bird species are totally dependant on the rare and declining Polylepis Forests, severely threatened by human activities. Aware that these forests were located on indigenous lands, ECOAN developed a community process aimed at preventing forest destruction and bird extinction by:

i- providing short term alternatives for raw materials and energy needs.

ii- developing multi-use plantations for midterm use (20,000 to 35,000 trees/year).

iii- implementing Polylepis forest restoration with and by the communities (50,000 to 70,000 trees/year).

iv- solving land tenure controversies among communities and public agencies.

v- developing bird population and forest conservation monitoring with community members.

vi- developing a bird conservation awareness campaign through public workshops and public radio broadcasting.

vii- documenting their activities with scientifically accepted protocols so that all hypothesis underlying the conservation work can be put to test. During the past two years, ECOAN has focused on the conservation of some of the rarest and more imperiled birds of the hemisphere, whose habitats are considered AZE sites by the Alliance for Zero Extinction. Among them, we have Marvelous Spatulatail hummingbird, Ochre-fronted Antpitta, Long-whiskered Owlet, Johnson’s Tody-tyrant, Lake Junin Grebe and Lake Junin rail. The Spatulatail is being conserved in a private reserve developed through the first ever conservation easement with a farmer community in Peru. The next three species are being conserve in the newly created Abra Patricia Reserve, where ECOAN acquired 6,500 acres of pristine forest and has achieved official pre-approval for a government grant of 34,000 acres of pristine forests on public lands (while also helping improve the official Alto Mayo Protected Forest). The work on conserving the Grebe and the Rail is conducted jointly with community members in Lake Junin. Important applied studies to define new conservation areas in the Marañon river, as well as monitoring neotropical migrants are under way directly by or under the leadership of ECOAN.

 

Significance of Accomplishments:

ECOAN’s work on Polylepis birds became so successful that it went from 3 initial communities with forests, to 19 communities for a total of 1,500 families. Polylepis destruction in this area has been almost totally halted. Moreover, the five highest conservation priority communities have.