The Yungas Forest in the Municipality of Quirusillas.

The nine communities of Quirusillas’ municipality and the reserve "Laguna Esmeralda" at the Department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, represent the north end of the absolute distribution of southern Yungas’ eco-region. This area is a key site for Alder Amazon’s conservation, presenting well-preserved forest patches, being a confirmed nesting site and a place of annual extraction of parrot chicks for illicit trade.

Quirusillas community in the far north of the southern Yungas.

Alder Amazon is an endemic and threatened species of southern Yungas. Its current population in Bolivia does not exceed 2700 individuals, this would be only 11% of exports recorded in the eighties, when the capture for the international pet trade registered 25 500 individuals. It has now been proven that there is a growing trade of this species intended for illegal pet market. Furthermore, Alder Amazon’s habitat (Southern Yungas) is recognized as an endemic bird area for the world (EBA 057) with global priority of urgent conservation, besides being considered as the most threatened eco-region in Bolivia due to the forest fragmentation and its converting to agricultural land. This eco-region is disappearing at an annual rate of 1.1% and 60% of the original surface is already degraded. This is a worrisome situation since there are many rural communities that depend on environmental services of this forest for their subsistence.

The aim of this project is to conduct an effective environmental education and sensitization of the local actors in Quirusillas’ municipality. For this we aim to include Alder Amazon as historical symbol in the Coat of Arms of these communities, to insert environmental issues in the training program of rural schools, to create mothers' clubs producers of craft to provide local women options of alternative incomes to parrots’ trade and finally to use a variety of media that allow us to socialize our activities and objectives with most of the local population. We believe that our action will generate feelings of citizenship, membership and permanent pride to Alder Amazon; this will fix replicable conservation values set in homes of many children and will give many rural mothers the opportunity to contribute to family support, besides turning them into diffusion sources of conservation messages. This strategy is feasible due to rural mothers are the family element closest to the children.