SURVEY TRIP OF HUARANGO PROJECT TO NAZCA

Members of the expedition with “Ignacio” Oscar’s car which took them to Huarango forest

Nazca is an arid place in the Ica department of SW Peru, famous for the giant pictures in the sand. Close by are little rivers that flow from the high Andes and join to form the Rio Grande, which drains into the Pacific Ocean. One little valley is a Grupo Aves del Peru (GAP) Reserve. This place, the Poroma valley (300 ha), has an important amount of Huarango trees Prosopis pallida. It is still possible to see threatened endemic birds such as the Slender-billed Finch Xenospingus concolor and the Black-necked Woodpecker Colaptes atricollis. GAP has an agreement with Kew Botanical Gardens, England (www.kew.org) to manage this area. In December, an expedition led by Oscar Gonzalez (the Director of A Rocha Peru) surveyed the flora and fauna: biologists Mario Tenorio, Evelyn Perez (vertebrates) and Octavio Pecho (plants) from GAP-Ica, and Antonio Garcia (invertebrates) from A Rocha Peru. The team was able to prove the presence of key bird and mammals and assess the impact of disease and fuel-gathering on the forest. The local people are eager to support a reforestation programme which is being planned by A Rocha Peru.

Interviewing a local about the animals in the Huarango forest

A ROCHA PERU VOLUNTEER’S WORK ON ENVIRO-ART GALLERY

Paty en la exposición - Parque Kennedy

Our friend, A Rocha Peru volunteer Patty Galarza, is a prize-winning biologist and artist. A month ago she exhibited her work with other artists in Kennedy Park, Miraflores, Lima. Now the EnviroArt Gallery (an association of artists linked with A Rocha) is selling Patty’s paintings and so promoting her art worldwide. You can see pictures and Patty’s biography at

GALERIA DE ARTE

Matthias Stiefel – Chair of A Rocha International’s Trustees, in Peru

On 7 January some of A Rocha Peru’s national committee and team met with Matthias Stiefel of A Rocha International. He updated us on A Rocha’s activities around the world, answered the many questions and invited everyone to lunch.

Matthias directs Interpeace, working to resolve conflicts in countries that are affected by war such as Rwanda, Somalia, and the ex-Yugoslavian nations. He came to Peru the for the first time in 1984 and has known A Rocha since its foundation in Portugal.

Ps. Ramon Casana

Trujillo - La Libertad

WORKSHOP ON STEWARDSHIP OF CREATION IN TARAPOTO

In November 2007 we led a workshop on the Stewardship of Creation as part of Course VII of Personal Development of Park Rangers of INRENA (National Institute for Natural Resources) in the NE region (Tarapoto),. The guest speakers were Ramon Casana and Oscar Gonzalez and we are grateful to pastors Alex Sifuentes and Jose Delgado, of the C&MA church of Juanjui and Tarapoto, for their help with this event.

Oscar Gonzalez - Director Ejecutivo ARocha Perú

Festival Children`s - Carabayllo

Following an invitation from friends in Vida Plena we participated in an event for children from the slums of San Martin in Carbayllo, on the outskirts of Lima. We did a little workshop and led games in which they expressed their wish to participate in the care of nature, prevent pollution and improve their own conditions. Carbayllo is surrounded by new building developments and fields. The inhabitants survive by trading scavenged materials (plastics, steel, etc) in very unhygienic conditions and the children help their parents in these activities.

Oscar (Executive Director) and Rosmery (Mag. Education) directing the workshop

HUARANGO FESTIVAL - ICA

Volunteers and team members of A Rocha Peru and GAP participated in the II Festival of Huarango, held in the Museo Regional of Ica. Maria, Paty, Monica and Marlene pose in the picture during a little rest in a busy schedule. This festival was part of the Huarango conservation project and involved many institutions, recreational activities, environmental education, the sale of local products from the Huarango forest, musical shows, etc.

JUNIN NATIONAL RESERVATION

The Chinchaycocha lake is located over 4105 m. in Junin Nacional Reservation. It hosts a grest diversity of birds which are representative of Andean ecosystems, where endemism is one of the main charactheristics. Unfortunatly this lake is affected by mining pollution, urban wate, bad water management and overusing of the natural resources. All these activities have ocassionated that the health of the lake is seriously affected. So the birds is one of the fauna groups more impacted.

One common recommendation of the different plans that have been proposed to conserve the lake is to stress in the evaluation and monitoring of the species which are indicators of the health state of the lake, also in the gathering of data to know the populational situation of the bird species and especially of the flagship and umbrella species, so this could lead to the desitions in the management of the lake.

This research looked fot the development of a methodology of evaluation and bird monitoring of the birds in Chinchaycocha lake. In this way this could guarantee the generation of reliable information with protocols, so they will allow in the desition-making of the area. Another task was to elaborate a diagnose of the proenvironmental attitudes of the local population, to fulfil one of the specific objectives of the Management Plan of Junin Nacional Reservation (2000-2005). This objective was to create environmental awareness in the local and regional level on the relevance of conservation and racional use of the natural resources of this protected area. This labor was done in the districts of Pari, Junin, Ondores and Carhuamayo inhaboted by peasants, landowners and traders of the zone.

In this project A Rocha Peru and GAP Participated

Through our partnership with Grupo Aves del Peru we are working to protect the rare bird species at the Junín Lake, which is an IBA. The Junín Flightless Grebe, Podiceps taczanowskii, probably the most threatened bird in Peru, and one of the rarest birds in the world, is only found at this one site. Oscar González is advising the rangers on how to improve their census methodology and Eduardo Calderón-Urquizo is studying the attitudes and behaviour of the local people with regard to the conservation of the lake.

A Rocha News May 2007