Social media video featuring the project.
María Alejandra Rojas Rivera
Community participation in biodiversity conservation processes is essential to achieve successful results. This proposal seeks to join efforts between the academy and the local community in order to know the population status of Oophaga histrionica, a frog species endemic to the area and is threatened by hunting practices and habitat destruction. We intend that hunters and other people from the local community, aware of the need to protect the frog, join the ecotourism network that already exists in the region. Thus, through scientific knowledge and economic alternatives other than hunting, the degree of conservation of the species is strengthened.
Oophaga histrionica.
On the other hand, this proposal also seeks for the community benefit directly from the conservation of the species. To achieve this, we will implement the "First Festival of the Red Frog of Santa Cecilia". This festival will aim not only to publicize the importance of the frog species in the region, but also different products of the inhabitants that are the result of the sustainable use of the natural resources of their territory will be commercialized. Thus, the festival will be a sample of agricultural, artisan, gastronomic and cultural products, and will be a propitious platform to promote sustainable tourism that the ASOAFA has promoted for more than five years in the region. A part of the economic profits from this festival will go to the protection of the species, through the financing of both the constant monitoring of the species and the recording of ecological data as well as technical training to carry out these activities.