THE AMAZON’S COMMUNITY CONSERVATION REVOLUTION KATELYN HAMMEL | UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA | SFS PERU s I tilt my head back and gaze up at the Milky Way stretching over the Yarapa River, I think about everything that I’ve seen today. The morning began with a hike where we followed ocelot tracks and called to capuchin monkeys. On the boat ride back to the research base, we encountered a three-toed sloth swimming VERY slowly across the river, his grinning face bobbing up and down with each slow-motion stroke. Later, we counted shore birds including kingfishers, terns, egrets, and even the hilariously awkward horned screamers. During the ride we were able to see squirrel monkeys hopping from tree to tree and pink river dolphins circling the river mouth, searching for fish. Now we are cruising in an open wooden boat under the stars, using a spotlight to search for caimans along the rainforest shore. To be able to encounter all these animals in such a short time seems unreal, but this was nothing out of the ordinary for a day in the Amazon. The energy contained in this place is indescribably vibrant and the forest constantly spills over with sound and movement. This part of the Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Regional Conservation Area was not always so lively and diverse. During the 1940s, outsiders began to harvest and exploit the rubber trees growing in the area, and throughout the 1900s, trees were clear-cut for timber while animals were hunted nearly to extinction for pelts and the exotic pet trade. The Indigenous people living in the region lost their usual food sources as well as certain parts of the forest that had traditionally been used for sustenance hunting for generations. As the forest was continually degraded, they lost more and more access to the natural resources that they had always been dependent on. In the 1980s, members of these communities reached out to a team of scientists who were in the area to study animal populations, looking for help. Together with the Peruvian government, they created a regional conservation plan that was revolutionary for the Amazon. When Tamshiyacu Tahuayo was named a national reserve, emphasis was placed on allowing the sustainable use of resources by the Indigenous communities already in the area. Community members were able to continue fishing, hunting, and otherwise making use of the rainforest’s resources while teams of conservationists monitored the processes to make sure they were being done in a sustainable way. Outsiders were kept from invading and exploiting the resources. Over time, the forest began to heal. A “Seeing this kind of success in a protected area gives me so much hope for the future of our world and makes me excited to be a part of similar conservation work.” Today, scientists continue to monitor the forest, measuring the health and diversity of the area. We were able to count bats, dolphins, and shore birds, and we caught fish along the Yarapa to assess the fish populations. Macaws were counted to reveal the presence of different fruits, while land mammals and caiman numbers gave us information about local hunting. Through this mutualistic conservation process, local communities have been able to restore their former levels of resource access while the forest has been able to recover and replenish severely decimated animal populations. Being able to collect conservation data along transects while interacting with the local communities in the Tamshiyacu Tahuayo reserve made the visit an eye-opening experience for me. As a science student, many of my classes are solely focused on the empirical side of conservation, forgetting that local people are often dependent on natural resources and that ignoring their needs and rights in an effort to “save” an area can end up doing more harm than good. This reserve is a dynamic example of a model in which, through cooperation between scientists, local groups, and a little bit of governmental help, higher levels of conservation and biodiversity can be reached. Seeing this kind of success in a protected area gives me so much hope for the future of our world and makes me excited to be a part of similar conservation work. READ MORE FROM OUR FACULTY, STAFF, AND STUDENTS IN THE FIELD AT: fieldstudies.org/blog 15