The IUCN/SSC-affiliated Tapir Specialist Group is a global group of biologists, zoo professionals, researchers and advocates dedicated to conserving tapirs and their habitat through strategic action-planning in countries where tapirs live, information sharing, and through educational outreach that shows the importance of the tapir to local ecosystems and to the world at large.


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  HELP NEEDED: The Tayja-Saruta Project: Conservation of Tapirus Terrestris in Ecuador - An Endangered Project

February 2004: The lowland tapir Tapirus terrestris has been categorized as “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red list.  Over hunting is the main threat.  For the indigenous inhabitants of the Sarayacu Community in Ecuador, Province of Pastaza, the lowland tapir is of high value for subsistence and monetary income.  The result is a dramatic decline in the number of tapirs. The Sarayacu people were aware and concerned about this development and therefore they developed together with Anders Siren (University of Upsalla) a project for sustainable management of Amazonian fauna.  The project aims to find alternatives to achieve conservation of all native species and to guarantee the co-existence of nature and people.  To achieve this goal, members of the community plan to establish wildlife refugees and find alternative sources of protein and monetary income.
 
The Zoo Osnabrück in Germany and the cooperating foundation “Pro Kreatur” decided to support this project with 15,000 Euro per year for at least five years.  The major tasks are to fund: a.) equipment for a wildlife refugee; b.) a forest guard; c.) the construction of poultry-houses and fish ponds; and, d.) to supply a feeding station for re-introduced tapirs.
 
The project started very successfully in June 2003.  Up to now one wildlife refugee has been established, fishponds and houses for poultry have been built and a number of workshops and talks have been organized to students, teachers and inhabitants by the project coordinator Mr. José Machoa.
 
But in spite of this good development the project is in danger.  Since a few years, the inhabitants have had problems with oil companies.  Like in many regions in Ecuador these companies are trying to occupy this area for oil production. Up until now, Tayja-Saruta has resisted successfully these attacks.  Since December 2003, the situation has degraded. Important routes from the small Sarayacu settlement to the town of Puyo are closed.  That is bad for the conduction of the project, because transportation of materials and supplies can only be done by airplane, which means that we have more transportation costs.  Much more drastic is the fact that the President of Ecuador and the Minister for Energy and Mines declared that they are willing to respect the contract with the oil company, which means that they will start seismic prospecting studies in the area.
 
In order to demonstrate our concerns we sent a protest letter to the Ecuadorian government.  At the moment, we are presenting a petition to zoo visitors to collect signatures and subsequently we will also send the petition to the Ecuadorian government.  Moreover, we will start an information campaign. We protest against the destruction of the wildlife habitat and the endangerment of our project, and not against the political situation. An important possibility to preserve this promising project is to mobilize international support from professional circles.

Does anyone have other ideas about what can be done?  More information about the situation in Sarayacu can be found on www.sarayacu.com
 
Thank you very much for your attention.  Any suggestions will be very much welcome.
 
Ute Magiera, Dipl.-Biol.
Zoo Osnabrück, Germany
E-mail: zoo@zoo-osnabrueck.de

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