This is the second report by Paul Butler on a Peruvian Rare Pride campaign.
The Rare team had arrived on a flight over the Andes and a lengthy drive along potholed roads to the small town of Oxapampa. Local Indians with their incongruous bowler hats and intricately woven shawls mingled with people that clearly had a more European ancestry. Our quest was to meet our local collaborator, Cesar Raul Laura Contreras.
[photopress:Cesar_1_2.JPG,thumb,alignleft]Cesar works for ProNaturaleza, one of the largest NGOs in Peru, and a partner of U.S.-based Nature Conservancy for over 15 years. Their staff of over 80 individuals implements land and species conservation, sustainable natural resource management projects, and climate change projects across Peru as well a large volunteer program.
Short, stout, and dark-haired Cesar greeted us with a broad smile and a passion for conservation that typifies the vast majority of Rare’s campaign managers. Over the coming year Rare will be working with Cesar on a Pride campaign that will strive to build community awareness about the Yanachaga Chemillén National Park and its wildlife inhabitants – in particular the endangered spectacled bear.
[photopress:Peru_schoolhouse_1.jpg,thumb,alignleft]Cesar had recently returned from his university training and had already completed his project planning process. This included identifying important local stakeholders with whom he could work to build awareness about, and pride for, the park, as well as developing a Concept Model to identify and articulate the myriad of threats that the park faces. He had ground-truthed this model with extensive surveys and set himself a number of campaign objectives. Over the next few days Cesar would explain these to us and take us into the communities to see his campaign in action. Clearly we were expected, as we drove up to the picturesque little school house nestled in the foothills of the Andes.
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