Wild vicuñas en Jujuy. Science for Conservation: Researchers and local communities working together towards sustainability

BIBIANA VILÁ

Tokyo

Conferencia; Winner´s Forum del Midori Prize for Biodiversity; 2014

United Nations University, Tokyo, Japón

Conferencia.Wild vicuñas in Jujuy. Science for conservation: Researchers and local communities, working together towards sustainability.  Se realizo una descripcon del proyecto de investigacion Thirty years ago I started studying wild vicuñas. A beautiful camelid, that was recovering from its extinction. Initially I started with my study in ecology and ethology of vicuñas and did my doctoral thesis in these respects. Then I expanded my vision so as to include this species into the environmental context and its interaction with other species. Finally incorporate the species in the sociocultural context and listen carefully to local communities. We are now a research team called VICAM; Vicuñas, camelidos y ambiente (Vicuñas, camelids and environment), interdisciplinary. And the good news: VICAM with the local community, make together a management plan that retrieves a chaku prehispanic practices. With the community, wild vicuña are herd into a corral where they are sheared and then released back into nature. Fiber is community property; scientific data are our main resource. Is a win- win situation. We study the effect of management in the wild population of vicuñas and the relationship of the species with the livestock of local people, mostly llamas and sheep.