Environmental education: A partner in the Sustainable Management of Vicuña in Argentina

BIBIANA VILÁ

Brasilia, Brasil

Workshop; XIX Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology; 2005

International Society for Conservation Biology

Invited workshop Approaches to involving local communities in mammal conservation in South America.   VILÁ, BIBIANA. Proyecto MACS. Departamento de Ciencias Sociales. Universidad Nacional de Luján, ruta 5 y 7, (6700) Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina. blvila@mail.unlu.edu.ar   ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: A PARTNER IN THE SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF VICUÑA IN ARGENTINA.   The vicuña, a wild South American camelid, is highly prized for its fine fibre, placing it at extreme risk of over-exploitation, as almost happened in the 1960s.  After decades of conservation, the recovery of some populations led to complaints from local pastoralists that vicuna compete with livestock for forage. Consequently, vicuña lost the appreciation they’d had from local communities when they were perceived as “endangered”. In Cieneguillas (a town in northern Argentina with a dense vicuña population) we adopted an environmental education (EE) approach in an attempt to encourage the local community to change their attitude from the “problem” of vicuña grazing, to an “opportunity” to gain financial return from harvesting fibre. Outcomes of the EE were: a) involvement of the community and school in chaku (an ancient pre-Hispanic capture technique) activities, b) more than 100 locals trained in chaku techniques, c) school children drawing, writing stories and “coplas” (traditional songs) regarding vicuña, d) a growing sense for the conservation of vicuña, e) children saying that they would go to university to study veterinary or biological sciences, f) at the regional level: 83 teachers from 18 towns trained, g) a book on regional EE written and given, free, to schools.   Bibiana Vilá, Proyecto MACS. Universidad Nacional de Luján, ruta 5 y 7, (6700) Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina. blvila@mail.unlu.edu.ar + 54 (0) 2323 436142 or 488823   Power-Point projector