Biodiversity Conservation at the Landscape Scale a Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society Supported by the USAID/Global Conservation Program
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Biodiversity Conservation at the Landscape Scale A Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society Supported by the USAID/Global Conservation Program Greater Madidi Landscape Conservation Area Annual Report October 2005 – September 2006 Living Landscapes Program- Bolivia/Madidi Wildlife Conservation Society 30 September 2006 USAID EGAT/NRM/Biodiversity Leader with Associates Cooperative Agreement Award LAG-A-00-99-00047-00 Leader with Associates Cooperative Agreement Award LAG-A-00-99-00047-00 Biodiversity Conservation at the Landscape Scale A Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society Supported by the USAID/EGAT Global Conservation Program Greater Madidi Landscape Conservation Area Annual Report October 2005 – September 2006 I. Summary of Activity Status and Progress a. Introduction/Summary: The Greater Madidi Landscape is documented as one of the most species-rich regions of the world. This bi-national area of approximately 70,000km2 includes a sweeping altitudinal range on the eastern flanks of the Andes. Spectacled bears, white-lipped peccaries, jaguars, and Andean condors and their habitats are partially protected by five protected areas: the Madidi National Park and Natural Area of Integrated Management (PNANMI Madidi), the Apolobamba Natural Area of Integrated Management (ANMI Apolobamba), and the Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve and Indigenous Communal Land (RB&TCO Pilón Lajas) in Bolivia, and the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park and the Tambopata Reserve in Peru. Yet these protected areas alone cannot adequately conserve such wide ranging, resource-demanding species, nor is the current capacity of government protected areas services (SERNAP & INRENA) sufficient to protect the reserves. The unique biological richness of the region is threatened by unregulated land use and resource extraction (e.g., livestock grazing, hunting) related to colonization and road development and exacerbated by a legal/regulatory framework that is fraught with internal conflicts. The Greater Madidi Biodiversity Conservation at the Landscape Scale (BCLS) Program aims to ensure conservation of the wild lands and wildlife of the greater Madidi area through a landscape conservation approach, working with other conservation and sustainable development projects active in the region. The landscape approach is designed to determine the needs of key wildlife species, assess human activities across the same landscape, and use the intersection of these to focus efforts on those areas and actions that emerge as key conservation conflicts or opportunities. The landscape species conservation hypothesis assumes that by meeting the needs of a suite of spatially and ecologically complementary landscape species, biodiversity in general will be conserved. Overall, the Greater Madidi Landscape Program remains on track. To accomplish the long-term goal of biodiversity conservation at the Greater Madidi Landscape Conservation Area, we focus on five interrelated objectives: establish baselines and monitor landscape species and the landscape context in which they are found; facilitate community-based natural resource management across the landscape; strengthen institutional capacity in natural resource conservation and management; promote the development of national policies that support the landscape conservation approach; and elaborate a participative, integrated landscape conservation action plan. 1 Leader with Associates Cooperative Agreement Award LAG-A-00-99-00047-00 Major Accomplishments: Five of the indigenous territories in the Bolivian landscape are now either established or well on the way to gaining legal recognition, many of them with accompanying management strategies. All three Bolivian protected areas have developed management plans. Our research has raised the profile of the region and we are using the results to reiterate the landscape species analysis including adjacent areas in southern Peru. Many of the community natural resource projects are beginning to move into commercialization phases and their success is being recognized by local funding sources. This has required strengthening processes in management and particularly administration, which we are successfully implementing with a series of local partners who were initially reticent. This period has also seen concrete collaborations with some municipal and local government officials, most notably with the creation of a 22,000-hectare Municipal Tourism Reserve in one of the most outstanding locations of this landscape, at the Alto Madidi jaguar census location. We have taken various steps toward building integrated and participatory planning processes across several jurisdictional and land use types. This helps to ensure that the visions of local people within the larger landscape are considered in concert with conservation goals. This process is building momentum with the increasing inclusion of local government bodies in environmental management and land-use planning, as well as the development of indigenous territory management plans and territorial planning initiatives. In terms of research, we remain at the forefront of conceptualizing the landscape conservation approach and developing useful landscape species tools that can be applied globally to landscape conservation initiatives. In particular, we have now developed multiple population target levels for conserving landscape species, given the general paucity of information regarding landscape species’ densities and current scientific debate over how many animals are required for a minimum viable population. The initial results of these population viability analyses indicate the importance of the neighboring protected areas in Peru for effective spectacled bear, condor and jaguar conservation. This highlights the need to consider expanding our conservation efforts to southern Peru, as well as to northeastern La Paz Department in Bolivia for species such as maned wolf, marsh deer and giant otter. Our pioneering efforts to document Andean bear and Andean condor populations, both notoriously short of data, have proved successful and our ongoing efforts with jaguar, white-lipped peccaries and a series of special elements are now well-known in the international scientific and local conservation practitioners’ community. Apart from being used in local conservation planning and environmental education efforts, the results from these studies are also highlighting the need for landscape scale planning for these regionally threatened species. b. Highlights: WCS provided the main technical and logistical support for the establishment of the Association of TCOs (Tierras Comunitarias de Origen or Indigenous Territories) of Northern La Paz, with two of the objectives of creation being to promote the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources as well as the defense of protected areas and indigenous territories. Legal support to CIPTA (Consejo Indigena del Pueblo Tacana) supported initiation of the land titling process for the Tacana TCO II in the Madre de Dios area of northern La Paz Department. First draft of Sustainable Natural Resource Management Strategy for the Tacana TCO II completed, representing the territorial vision of CIPTA and the four Tacana communities in Madre de Dios region. Over 100 km of the potentially conflictive boundaries of the titled sections of the Tacana TCO I successfully delimited, with appropriate signs and with significant community support. 2 Leader with Associates Cooperative Agreement Award LAG-A-00-99-00047-00 Twelve sustainable community forestry management initiatives underway in the Tacana TCO I and at differing stages in terms of approved management. Already the Tacana TCO I represents one of the community spaces with the most land under approved forestry management in the country. Technical, administrative and financial support lent to significant non-timber forest product management in the Tacana TCO I, including handicrafts and wild chocolate production. Final draft of an official government-recognized Territorial Plan for the Tacana TCO I representing the culmination of the participative zoning and micro-zoning process of the communities completed and ready for submission. Over 40% of the Tacana TCO I zoned as either Reserve or Exclusive Tourism Area, and over 80% zoned for different forms of sustainable natural resource management and/or Reserve, indicating the Tacana’s commitment to conservation. Administrative capacity installed within CIPTA and actively being passed on to a series of productive associations including the community forestry initiatives. This administrative capacity is critical to securing a number of direct grants for CIPTA from either local funding agencies or international agencies that have been informed by the advances in the Tacana TCO I. Support to the development and initial implementation of the Environmental Management Strategy of the Leco Indigenous People, leading to the development of three priority proposals. Legal technical support leading to the conclusion of the land titling process of polygon 1 (62,780.7625 hectares), which is currently awaiting the signature of the President of Bolivia, and polygon 2 (23,944.3958 hectares), which is currently awaiting the final land titling resolution approval by the Director of the land titling agency (INRA). Incorporated processes for strategic conflict management in the SERNAP central office, through the institutionalization of the Environmental Conflict Management Strategy and database and the Environmental