Bearing Down on Peru
This is Paul Butler’s third report on visit to a Rare Pride campaign in Peru.
The elementary school we visited in Oxapampa was small (less than 100 students, I would guess), the children even smaller. But what it, and they, lacked in size they more than made up with in enthusiasm. Their smiles were broad – each one anxious to see the foreign visitors that had joined Cesar to visit their school.
Cesar is Rare’s campaign manger in Oxapampa, Peru. Thirty-eight years old, Cesar has lived in 
Oxapampa for nearly 20 years. Trained in agronomy and livestock management, Cesar has a strong background in working with communities on agricultural extension issues and on the conservation of protected areas.
Today he would be accompanied by a costumed “spectacled bear” on a mission to teach the children about the value of forests and the need for reforestation. It would be the first time Cesar had worked with a costume, but not be his last, as he would be using it to visit schools and communities across the region to serve as a “spokesperson” for the environment. The great grandchild of Smokey the Bear perhaps!
The program began with Cesar introducing himself and asking the children about some of the benefits that the forests bring them. They all need water, they all need air. After all did they not 
eat and drink that morning, oh, and what about “washing their faces.” The kids giggled, but no more so than when Cesar informed them that he had a friend (Oso) who had accompanied him to the school, but who had become lost. Perhaps if the children called his name, he might come.
“Oso,” “Oso.” the children roared and sure enough the “bear” arrived smiling, waving to giggles and screams of delight. To jaded children in so-called “developed” countries drenched in media and accustomed to Disney World, the arrival of a bear in one’s school may not be a memorable moment; but to these kids who have probably never heard of Disney, this was a moment to be cherished. They rushed forward to touch, hug and kiss “Oso,” and were enraptured as Cesar talked about the importance of the area’s forest habitat for both the bear and themselves. Kids promised to help, and did so – joining the team in a tree a planting exercise.
As we were to see later, it was not only the kids that fell in love with Oso, but the wider 
community too. Cesar held a community meeting, asking locals to work with him to declare the spectacled bear a regional symbol, a living icon of Pride to be cherished and protected. Even the mayor, Jeanette Prieto Noriega (currently running for re-election), planted a kiss on Oso.
Later, Cesar hit the radio station continuing with his environmental messages, and then moved on to holding an environmental fair. All in a day’s work for a Rare campaign manger. If the bear is the symbol of Pride for Oxapampa, then the Cesars of this world, working on conservation’s front lines, are living “symbols” of Pride for me!
