***********************************************
WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Central
American Rainforest Updates
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
January
20, 1996
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
Here is
the Rainforest Foundation's Eco-Exchange round-up of
blurbs
concerning biodiversity and forest protection in Central
and
South America. Topics include Costa
Rican forest
conservation,
Managua's languishing lagoons, Paraguay's electronic
media
campaign, and the question of whether the Mexican wolf will
survive. This was posted in econet's rainfor.general
conference.
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
/**
rainfor.genera: 132.0 **/
** Topic:
December Eco-Exchange **
**
Written 7:37 AM Jan 15, 1996 by canopy in cdp:rainfor.genera
**
CONTRACTS
FOR FOREST CONSERVATION
Five
years ago a Costa Rican forestry conservation group began to
tackle
the problem of how to slow deforestation north of the
capital
city of San Jose. Today, the Foresta
Project of the
Foundation
for the Development of the Central Volcanic Mountain
Range
(FUNDECOR) has contracts with 90 landowners to sustainably
manage
more than 30,000 acres (13,000 has.) of forests.
FUNDECOR's
engineers draw up management plans for the landowners,
marking
those trees that will be cut and those conserved. They
train
local loggers to fell trees in the direction that will cause
the
least amount of damage to surrounding vegetation. "Just two
to five
trees per hectare are cut and taken directly to the
auction
block," explains Victor Montero, a FUNDECOR forester.
"This
eliminates the customary middlemen who eat up a large
portion
of the landowners' profits."
Forest owners are
responsible
for paying loggers and truck, tractor or oxen
drivers.
In a
forest enrolled in the Foresta program, Carlos Lopez of
FUNDECOR
points to a pile of tree branches and thick, discarded
chunks
of tree trunks. Ulises Cordero stands
nearby, poised with
his
chainsaw. "Usually after trees are
cut, all this remains
behind
because nobody wants it," Lopez says.
"In the Foresta
Project,
local villagers like Don Ulises buy these scraps, saw
them
into boards on-site and sell them to furniture makers."
Lopez
notes Foresta generates jobs for nearby villagers and
earnings
that total $1.1 million annually.
Foresta also
established
tree nurseries, now managed by local residents, that
sell
only native species. Farmers plant the
seedlings on their
worn-out
pasture land. Foresta is principally
supported by the
U.S.
Agency for International Development; FUNDECOR directors
declined
to reveal the total amount of funding.
The
bio-rich central mountain range is home to more than half of
the
country's wildlife species. The range's
watersheds provide
half of
Costa Rica's drinking water, a paramount reason for
FUNDECOR's
efforts to keep its steep slopes protected by forest
cover.
Contact:
FUNDECOR, Apdo. 549-2150, Moravia, Costa Rica, 506/240-
2624
(tel), 236-8259 (fax).
MANAGUA'S
LANGUISHING LAGOONS
Once
favorite spots for twilight strolls and refreshing swims, the
lagoons
that encircle Nicaragua's capital city of Managua are in
dismal
condition. The Community of Young
Environmentalists (JA!)
wants
to save the lagoons, but at least one may be beyond repair.
Pedro
Obregon, director of JA!, explains that Nejapa Lagoon
"disappeared"
when "sediments from deforestation blocked the
underground
waters that supplied it, so now it is completely dried
up."
The
government built a floating amphitheater in Tiscapa Lagoon and
rows of
seats on her banks. But the theater
sunk, people stole
the
seats for scrap metal and stripped the banks of trees for
firewood. Reforestation campaigns begun by JA! have
failed, says
Obregon,
"because vagabonds start fires, and we lose the little
trees." So the group solicited help from the
Nicaraguan Army,
which
now guards Tiscapa.
JA!
also convinced the mayor of Managua to build water treatment
plants
to replace storm drains that Obregon says emptied
"sediments,
rainwater, sewage, soapy water and the garbage of
Managua
into the lagoon." In an Earth Day
effort to call
attention
to their campaign, JA! volunteers collected five
cartloads
of garbage from Tiscapa last April and lined them up in
the
middle of one of Managua's busiest intersections.
Another
problem lagoon is Xiloa, whose sulfurous waters made it a
popular
bathing spot, with nearly a
million visitors annually.
Bars
and restaurants line Xiloa's shores, but Obregon points out
that
there are not enough public facilities. JA! insists that the
government
build adequate sanitary services, provide trash cans
and
clean up the shoreline garbage.
Contact:
Pedro Obregon, Jovenes Ambientalistas, Apdo. C-101,
Managua,
Nicaragua, 505-2/60-0136 (tel), 77-3525 (fax).
BROADCASTING
PARAGUAY'S PROBLEMS
The
surprising results of a national survey conducted by a local
ecological
group was the impetus behind an electronic media
campaign
recently launched in Paraguay. The
poll, done by the
Moises
Bertoni Foundation for the Conservation of Nature,
measured
how much Paraguayans knew about their country's
environmental
problems.
"We
learned that people could identify at most two environmental
problems,"
reports Edith Asibey, director of the foundation's
environmental
education program. "And though a
majority
acknowledged
that deforestation exists, they didn't feel it was a
problem
that affected them."
With
funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the
foundation
produced educational messages for radio and
television.
"More than 80 percent of the homes in Paraguay have a
radio,
and more than 60 percent have a television," says Asibey.
Paraguay's
ministry of education helped produce the one-minute
spots,
and the leading media outlets agreed to donate air time.
The
spots, whose theme is, "It all depends on us," are in Spanish
and
Guarani, the country's two official languages.
One
spot features a conversation between a river and a rock.
After a
coughing fit, the river complains that he is so full of
garbage
and pollutants that "people can no longer swim in my
waters
and if they drink me, they become ill or worse."
Asibey
hopes the media campaign will encourage people to get
involved. "In Paraguay we are in the process of a
democratic
transition. After 35 years of military dictatorship, the
people
were
absolutely unprepared to participate in government," she
says. "It is very important that we now
stimulate citizen
participation."
Contact:
Edith Asibey, Av. Rodriguez de Francia, #770, Asuncion,
Paraguay,
595/21-440-238 (tel), 21-440-239 (fax), edith@fmb.py (e-
mail).
WILL
THE MEXICAN WOLF SURVIVE?
A
century ago, the midnight howls of the Mexican wolf (Canis lupus
baileyi)
sounded from hill tops in southern Arizona, New Mexico
and
Texas south to central Mexico. But
cattle ranchers who
cleared
forest for pastureland virtually eradicated the wolf,
which
they condemned for killing cattle. By
1970, the animal had
disappeared
completely from the United States, notes biologist and
Mexican
wolf specialist Oscar Moctezuma. Perhaps 50 individuals
remained
in Mexico.
Moctezuma
leads a dogged campaign funded by Naturalia, a
conservation
group based in Mexico City, designed to save the
Mexican
wolf. Naturalia's crusade supports
captive breeding
programs,
mounts expeditions to locate wild wolf populations, and
conducts
an environmental education campaign to dispel malicious
wolf
myths.
Treks
organized by Naturalia in 1993 and 1994 turned up no
definitive
evidence of wild wolves. But Moctezuma
is optimistic
that an
expedition planned for next January will be fruitful,
since a
noted biologist has confirmed hearing wolf howls in the
hills
of Durango, in northwest Mexico.
Through
the media, Naturalia gets out the message that Mexican
wolves
are not vicious, bloodthirsty animals.
"A myth widely
spread by
ranchers is that all wolves kill cattle," Moctezuma
says. "But only a few do this and only
because their natural prey
is so
scarce. On the other hand, studies have
demonstrated the
enormous
value of the role the wolf plays in its ecosystem."
Naturalia's
campaign is funded through the sale of wolf tee-
shirts,
mugs and posters.
If the
1996 search confirms a wild population, Naturalia will push
to
protect the region. Moctezuma also
hopes the group can help
identify
a reserve where captive-bred wolves could be
reintroduced. Education campaigns will be needed then more
than
ever,
he says. To prevent ranchers from again
slaughtering the
species,
he suggests the government establish a fund to
compensate
them for any cattle lost.
Contact:
Oscar Moctezuma, Naturalia, Apdo. 21-541, Mexico 04021,
DF,
52-5-6746678 (tel), 6745294 (fax)
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