Megan Hill, Rare’s Senior Director, Cohort Learning Networks, spent a week in Colombia with barrier removal consultant, Robert Yaguache, visiting four different Rare Pride campaign sites in four different regions of Colombia.

Robert is from Ecuador and is an expert in designing and negotiating  agreements where farmers are compensated for conserving their land in exchange for the water that their forests generate for people downstream.

Above is Robert (center) and the Corpoguavio team near Guasca, Colombia talking with a farm administrator about his farming techniques. Guasca is near Bogota and adjacent to Chingaza National Park. They are standing in a newly cleared potato field. Note how fertile the soil is; clearing land for potatoes is a major threat to this region.

Paramos are high alpine plateaus in the Andes, between the forest line and permanent snow line.  This plant is an example of typical paramo vegetation, starting at about 3,000 meters.  While it might seem surprising, the paramo ecosystems of the Andes are home to over 5,000 plant species, nearly 60 percent of which are endemic.

Robert (center) spends time working with Javier (left), who’s worked in this region for nearly seven years and Roberto (right), an extensionist working with Corpoguavio, helping them prioritize the best lands and which farmers to target for negotiations.

We left Guasca and headed to a town called Roncesvalles.

In this community, ProAves is a leader in promoting Yellow-eared parrot conservation. In a move that rarely happens, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) just announced that the status of the Yellow-eared Parrot is being downgraded from “Critically Endangered” to “Endangered.” The move recognizes the remarkable achievements of three conservation organizations — Fundación ProAves, Fundación Loro Parque, and American Bird Conservancy (ABC) — in conserving the species.

The painting featured on the telephone poll above is a symbol of ProAves work in Roncesvalles.  In ten years, the number of parrots has gone from 90 to more than 600 due to their work to stop harvesting of the Wax palm (palma de cera), especially during the Lenten season when the palms are harvested for Palm Sunday celebrations. ProAves does regular monitoring of the parrots.

A fence made of Wax Palm.

Heidy showing a map of the watershed in Rocesvalle.  Gonzalo (left) is a member of the ProAves team and a local farmer.

Next stop: San Vicente de Chucuri (pictured above)

Mules bringing down fruit grown inside the Serrania de Yariguies National Park, home to three different AZE priority species, including the Cerulean Warbler and Gorgeted Wood-quail.  Clearing forest for berry growing is a threat here.

Above is an example of agroforestry in this region. Along the streams coffee and cacao are harvested. The park is negotiating with landowners who had title to their land before the park was declared to buy them out.

This is San Vicente’s water treatment facility.  With more land conserved in the upper watershed, water quality will improve.

Last stop: Farallones de Cali National Park

Next stop:  Queremal. Above is a photo of Queremal, near Cali,  from the top of the watershed.

We traveled around with Pride campaign manager Jaime Alexander Millán Castillo. Here he is opening a stakeholder workshop with a tool he learned in Rare’s Pride campaign training, the web of life game.

Stakeholders discussing how they can be involved in the campaign at Farallones de Cali National Park.

The flower (the queremal) shown on this poster is already a source of pride at this site and is used here in publicity for an Andean music festival.  Jaime will include this flower as part of his campaign design.

Jaime at a hummingbird feeder along the San Antonio Km. 18 Important Bird Area.  Colombia has the most bird species in the world — more than 1,800!  Here he gets close to a White-necked Jacobin (Florisuga mellivora).

Uranbayar was rescued by a Mongolian fishing club.

A Mongolian fishing club saves a lost boy in the wilderness

• Great story and photos inside about how a Mongolian fishing club saved a boy who was lost in the wilderness for 11 days.

The world’s rarest otter has been rediscovered in Borneo

• “The world’s rarest otter has been rediscovered in Borneo, after a single individual was photographed by a camera trap set by conservation scientists.”
• “The world’s rarest otter has been rediscovered in Borneo, after a single individual was photographed by a camera trap set by conservation scientists.”

China faces serious water shortages as its economy booms and urbanization increases

• “With 20 percent of the world’s population but just 7 percent of its available freshwater, China faces serious water shortages as its economy booms and urbanization increases. The government is planning massive water diversion projects, but environmentalists say conservation — especially in the wasteful agricultural sector — is the key.”

Air conditioners account for 1/5 of total electricity use in the US. So, what’s a sweltering A/C addict to do? 5 tips:

• “Not only will you save on your electricity bill, you’ll keep your house cooler. Cox writes that CFLs produce ‘30 percent as much heat for a given amount of illumination’ as their incandescent counterparts.”

A man crossed the Pacific in a boat made out of plastic bottles to raise awareness for the mess we have created

• “A catamaran constructed from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles reached Sydney harbour today after a four-month voyage across the Pacific Ocean to raise awareness of the dangers posed to the environment by plastic waste.”

To work, Pride campaign mascots must tap into local emotions and identity. Campaign manager Zhuoma Sina explains the thinking behind her Pride campaign mascot:

“The snub-nosed monkey, like China’s precious giant panda, is known throughout our country. They are believed to bring people happiness, safety and give the mountains endless good fortune. We gave the mascot a human name because the snub-nosed monkey has facial features and expressions that are startlingly like people, right down to their red lips. The name “Lulu” is significant because in local Tibetan culture, the family’s youngest child, often nicknamed Lulu, is the most pampered – in hopes that he or she grows up strong, healthy and successful. Because we want to treat the reserve with the same kind of care, the name seemed perfect.”

“It’s important that we not assume our conservation program is having a good effect, but that we actually monitor it against hard data.”

WWF Mongolia’s Rare Pride campaign will protect the taimen fish in the Onon River by working with local fishing people to adopt catch-and-release fishing practices in order to reduce illegal fishing.

Blue Venture’s Rare Pride campaign on the Andavadoaka Coast in Madagascar will ensure the health of the world’s third largest coral reef by working with local fishers and communities to protect juvenile fish species by eliminating the use of beach seine nets and the practice of poison fishing. This is a success story from that campaign.

During the month of March, Campaign Manager Gildas Andriamalala made plans to organize three leadership and governance training workshops for the leaders of 24 villages in his campaign site. The workshops were delayed, however, in order to accomodate an election being held which would appoint two leaders to the Velondriake MPA (marine protected area) Management Committee.  These individuals would in turn be the designated village leaders on marine matters.

As Blue Ventures helped to facilitate the election, Gildas used the opportunity to stimulate discussion among the community and ask community members to make public statements in regard to local law (known as Dina) as it relates to marine matters.  As a result of these discussions, Gildas came up with the idea to produce a panel for each community that represents what the Dina means to them.  This panel would then be placed by the waterfront of the community, in clear view, to inform everyone of the law and to emphasize that it is being enforced.

“As you can see from the pictures, none of the panels are the same,” Gildas said. “They all had their own idea in every village. Some of them didn’t really care about attractiveness in terms of presentation and writing, but some did it very well.”

This was, in social marketing terms, a brilliant idea. Producing and posting the panels would be a minute task for the community, but it would create significant buy-in and ownership of the campaign.

“The most important thing is that the messages are out and observed by all of the community. For example, in Lamboara, they wrote down everything included in their Dina on the panel,” said Gildas.

Lamboara panel translation: “Velondriake protected area. I’m Vezo; this is why I stop people from doing these destructive practices: Using poison fishing in all regions, buying fish caught from poison fishing, using gear that kill juveniles (mosquito net, gillnet, etc), using beach seine, doing coral overturning and coral destruction, hunting turtle and dolphin, poaching all type of reserve (octopus, sea cucumber, fish, etc), cutting mangroves without authorization, littering along the beach.”

Agnolignoly panel translation: “Stop poison fishing, beach seining, and coral overturning.  Fine: 10,000 ar/person if caught.  I’M VEZO”

Ankindranoke panel translation: “Stop beach seine, poison fishing, and coral overturning. Anyone caught poison fishing pays about a hundred thousand ariary. It is also forbidden to do night diving. It is also forbidden to collect poisoned fish floating  on the surface. The broad community is also allowed to catch people with the committee members.”

Tampolove panel translation: “Go fish in the sea but don’t use poison, beach seine and coral overturning. It’s good to protect marine resources for our future generations’ living.”

Vatoavo panel translation: “‘Velondriake Area’ ISONY- VATOAVO. It is forbidden here to do beach seine and poison fishing. It is forbidden to cut mangrove without permission. Fine: 40-000Ar or 40000Ar”

Some 180 to 200 rhinos may be killed by the end of the year in South Africa

• “Poaching of the endangered African rhino is on the rise, driven by increased demand for horns from Asia and the Middle East for use in traditional medicine and ornaments.”
• There are 18,500 white rhinos and 1,500 black rhinos left in the wild in South Africa.

June was the 304th month in a row above average temperatures

• “Data released from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Climatic Data Center shows that June 2010 was a record breaker. It was the warmest month of June globally since record-taking began in 1880 and it is the 304th month in a row that has been above the 20th Century average. The last month to fall below the average was February 1985: the month Nelson Mandela, who recently celebrated his 92nd birthday, rejected an offer of freedom from the then apartheid government.”
• June averaged globally at 61.1 degrees Fahrenheit (16.2 degrees Celsius). The temperature was 1.22 degrees Fahrenheit (0.68 degrees Celsius) above the 20th century average for June.”

Transition to ‘Cool Roofs’ Could Offset Two Years of CO2 Emissions

• “Using lighter colors for rooftops and streets worldwide could help reduce global temperatures and offset the heat from as much as two years of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study.”

Why soft toilet paper is rough on forests

• “Popular in U.S. households, plush toilet tissue requires pulp from virgin timber, some harvested from old-growth boreal forests. Increasingly, greener options are becoming available.”

Study: Climate change grasped better as health issue

• “Framing climate change as a public health problem helps people, even skeptics, better understand the issue’s significance, reports George Mason University researchers.”

This post was written by Paula Brook. She is a journalist who divides her time between Vancouver, B.C. and Loreto, B.C.S.

A recent Pride celebration brought over 300 local residents out to Loreto Bay National Park. For more than 200 of the Loretanos, it was a first ever visit to this important protected area. To encourage future visits, participants were required to locate the local park office and pick up free tickets in person. The boat tours took visitors along the area’s stunning beaches and then returned them to a giant beach party – featuring a cooking contest that required sustainably caught ingredients. Local fishers, for years an audience suspicious of conservation, agreed to present information on recently launched sustainable fisheries projects taking place within the park. It was an all-out community event with local tour operators, fishers, government agencies, boat captains, and other business owners donating their time, boats, food and drink.

You can find out more about CONANP’s Rare Pride campaign on RarePlanet.

It hasn’t been easy explaining to my friends back home why I love living in the Baja despite all the bad news flowing north from here. I go breathless defending my second home, describing the wild beauty of the desert, the astounding sea life, the easy pace, the simple pleasures – until I see their eyes glaze over and I know what they are thinking: that I can have it, they’ll stay home.

But now I have this photograph, and a story that says it all. In the photo my new friend Sujey is smiling broadly, her arms around her two young children, Kimberly and Jorge. They’re on a white sand beach on the tiny, perfect island of Coronado, half an hour by fishing skiff from the southern Baja town of Loreto where they live, and where my husband and I have built our retirement home on the edge of the Sea of Cortez.

It’s not the picture’s setting that is exceptional, though. There are plenty of white sand beaches in Mexico, though arguably few as pristine this one.  Coronado is one of five uninhabited islas protected by the Loreto Bay National Park Many tourists are drawn to Loreto for precisely this – the rare chance to cruise unspoiled waters past coral reefs and sea lion colonies, cliffs dotted with blue-footed boobies and topped with osprey nests.

The sea here is a giant jack-in-the-box where clownish dolphins pop up by the hundreds to dive and race alongside your boat and manta rays leap and sailfish perform their defiant dance on cue, “catch me if you can!”

Not to mention the whales – humpback, blue, grey, fin, sperm, sometimes it’s actually too much to take in. It can’t possibly be for real. But it is, a treasure chest open to those of us lucky enough to have a boat or the money to charter one. Riches for the rich. Same old story.

But here’s where the story takes a turn. Sujey and her family, like the majority of Loreto’s nearly 11,000 residents, live by the sea but are landlocked by their poverty.  A recent survey taken by Rare, a US-based conservation group, found that more than half the population of Loreto is not even aware there is a marine park here, nor that the view from their noisy little malecón is of a UNESCO World Heritage Site – something to be proud of, to protect.

And this is the challenge faced by organizations like Rare. It is hard to share the conservation message with people whose feet have never touched the white sand where the tiny fragile tortugitas hatch each fall, people whose parents cooked sea turtles for supper. Harder still to convince local fishermen to count and measure their dorado and turn home to their hungry families in mid-morning if they’ve already caught their limit.

Which is why the local staff of CONANP, the federal parks department, applied to Rare for the resources they would need to undertake a two-year Rare Pride awareness campaign in Loreto. The program was approved, resources allocated and a local organizer named Perla Lozano Angulo hired to launch the program 18 months ago.

Today, as the Rare Pride campaign winds down, real pride is on the upswing in Loreto. You can hardly toss a clamshell without hitting a poster announcing “Yo digo si a la pesca responsable” (I say yes to responsible fishing) or “Loretanos por un mar lleno de vida!” (Loretanos for a sea full of life!)

Cars sport the slogans on their bumpers; school kids wear them on blue rubber wristbands. Murals at the soccer and baseball parks announce that points are being scored “for sustainable fishing!”

But for Sujey, pride was just a catchy slogan until last month when she boarded a boat for the first time in her life and headed out to sea. It was our boat, with my husband Shaw at the wheel and me on lifejacket duty and seven others on board including little Jorge and Kimberly.

Ours was one of 23 boats recruited for a day of free rides offered to Loretanos who had never been to the islands. Among the captains were local fishing guides, park officials and extranjeros like us who were keen to offer our Mexican neighbors a glimpse of the magic that is their birthright.

Free sailing and kayaking were also on offer all day at the municipal beach. On the malecón, Perla Angulo was overseeing a giant clam cook-off along with puppet shows for the kids and information kiosks for fishers. But the longest lineups were for the island tours, organized by Loreto’s Rare director Cynthia Mayoral who could have used 20 more boats to accommodate the crowds. As we set off toward Isla Coronado, we looked back to see people queuing patiently for second and third sailings.

It was to be a very full day for us volunteers, but muy lleno de vida – and I don’t just mean sea life.

“The idea of the boat rides was to create an opportunity for people to have an emotional connection to the park,” Mayoral told me later. “We got more than 250 people out there, and the reaction was amazing.”

What pleased her most was the pride expressed by the park staff – “guys who do this important work everyday and don’t get much recognition or credit. Out on the water that day, sharing the park with their community, it was a real breakthrough experience for them.”

As it was for us, sharing our passengers’ thrill at discovering the paradise in their own backyard. For Sujey, the best was the exhilaration of flying across the waves at 40 knots, like a ride at the fair, she told me, “pero mucho mejor!”

Her boss at a health spa gave her the day off for this adventure, and she threw herself into it, bringing swimming gear and toys and snacks for the kids – their first island picnic. So many firsts.

Little Jorge, who loves looking at pictures of sea animals and trying to identify them, went into near shock as we approached el punto de lobos where a dozen-odd sea lions lazed in the sun, some with sleeping infants draped across their great sloping backs. When one of the stinky beasts reared up and barked at our approaching boat, Jorge’s mouth fell open, and he dived to Sujey’s feet and cowered there, taking cautious peeks over the railing while his mom and three-year-old sister shrieked with laughter.

We must have taken more time than most groups laughing at the lobos and scanning the guano-caked cliffs for boobies because by the time we swung around the island to the white-sand picnic area it was uncharacteristically crammed with beached pangas. Shaw and I have been here dozens of times and rarely encountered more than one or two groups of island-hopping tourists or divers exploring the reef. Today we had to tightly angle-park our boat before inviting our passengers to jump over the bow into the warm shallows.

On the beach, Sujey quickly changed the children into swim suits and, with the most cursory look back at me looking at her, turned seaward and walked out into the water, fully dressed in modest Mexicana style. Straight as though mesmerized, drawn by an urge stronger than motherhood – some kind of primal tug out into the clear bay, never glancing back, walking until the water reached her chin, pulling the elastic out of her ponytail, shaking her hair loose before diving down, then resurfacing so far out I found myself holding my breath.

A quarter hour later, a cool wind had come up. The children paid no notice – sandcastles demanded building and rebuilding – but we adults pulled on sweaters and pulled down our hats. I kept my gaze moving from the shore to the sea where Sujey was now a tiny splashing speck in the distance, rounding the reef with strong strokes. Surely cold and tired by now, I thought. Weighed down by wet clothing, no one nearby to hear a call for help. Just as I was about to cry for her, she waved – a tiny but patently strong and happy signal from afar, and a shout, almost as shrill as the lobos’ bark: “estupendo!”

“Basta!” I shouted back to the waving arm.

“Ya voy!” she shouted, breathless but clear.

Sujey hardly spoke as we motored back to Loreto. She sat straight up into the bracing wind in her wet clothes, tightly hugging her children who shivered and squirmed on her lap, laughing through booby-blue lips even though they’d been dried and dressed and bundled up in their matching tiger-eared towels. The threesome stayed that way for the 30-minute ride back to town, and didn’t budge until after we had docked in the marina where a fresh throng of passengers awaited their free island tours.

“Estamos aquí,” I whispered to Sujey after we cut the motor, and it was like I had woken her from a dream. She pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail and handed the children up to my husband on the dock – their little arms and legs dangling like wet noodles, so tired they could barely walk up the ramp to the malecón. But not so their mom who glowed with energy, her eyes still wild from riding the waves, her skin flushed from the long swim.

“Así que es eso,” she said quietly as we embraced.

Indeed, eso es.

This photo of a tiger comes courtesy of Flickr user catlovers.

Officials seek ways to double the number of tigers in the world, at an international forum in Bali, Indonesia

• There are just 3,200 tigers left. The lowest number ever.
• The WWF has warned that a lack of global action could kill off the endangered species.
• Rare has several campaigns to protect tigers across the world, including Thailand, Laos, Indonesia and China.

How Cap & Trade Would Help Wildlife (Or: Cap Pollution, Trade Otters!)

• “Let’s say Congress enacted a cap-and-trade system and pollution permits were selling for about $20 a ton. If [scientist Chris] Wilmers is right and a healthy sea otter population could sequester ten million tons of carbon, that’d be worth $200 million. So polluters might decide that it’s cheaper to fund sea otter preservation programs than cut power use (at least in the short term), and new offset projects could get approved. Voila: There’s suddenly money to try this sea otter strategy.”

Black bears may escape Gulf oil contamination, experts hope

• “Two subspecies of the American black bear, the Florida black bear (Ursus americanus floridanus) and the Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus), have received less attention. But they also serve as umbrella species in the Gulf Coast region for a diversity of fauna living in somewhat disparate zoogeographic regions where these occasional and common peri-domestic, and highly adaptable opportunistic omnivores find themselves, as suitable and available habitat continues to shrink.”
• “In March of 2009 the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) designated critical habitat for the Louisiana black bear in the state of Louisiana, where the bear is also celebrated as the state mammal. The designated area covers 1,195,821 acres spanning 15 parishes.”

A GAO study indicated by 2013, 36 states could face water shortages. Enter WaterSense

• “WaterSense is a partnership program paralleling the agency’s Energy Star program for electric appliances. Working with manufacturers, retailers, water utilities, state governments and nonprofits, the agency has established guidelines for fixtures, like toilets, shower heads and faucets, that use less water without sacrificing performance. WaterSense-labeled products use about 20 percent less water than standard models, the E.P.A. estimates.”
• “Although the agency has been addressing water efficiency issues for some years, said Stephanie Thornton, a marketing specialist with the WaterSense program, the impetus for starting up WaterSense in 2006 came from a Government Accountability Office study indicating that water managers in 36 states were anticipating shortages by 2013.”
• “A family of four uses 400 gallons of water every day; homes fitted with WaterSense-labeled toilets and bathroom faucets could save more than 11,000 gallons a year, the E.P.A. estimates.”

BP Says Cap Is Repaired and Oil Cutoff Test Can Proceed

• “After a new setback because of a hydraulic leak, BP prepared Thursday to pick up where it left off the day before: with a crucial test that could stop the rush of oil from its well in the Gulf of Mexico for the first time since the disaster began three months ago.”

When it comes to lobster tails and sustainability, size does matter

• Check out the Size Matter t-shirt for our campaign to protect the spiny lobster.
• Friend’s of the Environment’s Rare Pride campaign will protect local lobster populations off the coast of Abaco Island by motivating local fishers to support and observe regulations of size limits and closed seasons in order to reduce illegal juvenile lobster fishing.

MIT: Simply dispatching natural gas plants before coal would cut U.S. power-sector CO2 emissions 10%

• “Gas can be a bridge to low-carbon future if we put a price on CO2.”
• “Ernest J. Moniz, Director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), noted that the analysis determined that natural gas could serve as a bridge between coal and renewable energy: Much has been said about natural gas as a bridge to a low-carton future, with little underlying analysis to back up this contention.  The analysis in this study provides the confirmation — natural gas truly is a bridge to a low-carbon future. The study notes that the best way to spur this path forward is with a cap on carbon pollution.  It recommends that, “a CO2 price for all fuels without long-term subsidies or other preferential policy treatment is the most effective way to achieve this result.”

Great interview with Jane Goodall 50 years after she first embarked to study chimps

• “During Goodall’s six-month sojourn in the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve, now Gombe National Park, Goodall saw a chimp strip leaves off twigs to fashion tools for fishing termites from a nest. Until then, scientists thought that humans were the only creatures that created and used tools. This was just the first of many Goodall discoveries that have redefined the relationship between humans and other animals.”

Tons of rare Asian pangolins are seized. Will anything curb China’s insatiable appetite for rare wildlife?

• “Pity the scaly anteater, or  pangolin. It is hardly what anyone would call charismatic megafauna, so it doesn’t spark big campaigns by wildlife conservation groups. The reclusive, nocturnal animals could surely vanish from southern Asia with hardly anyone noticing (there are  other species in Africa). Two of the four Asian pangolin species are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. (The Malayan pangolin pictured above is safe, living in one of Singapore’s national parks.)”
• “The total population of the Malayan pangolin is estimated to have been cut  50 percent in 15 years, mainly through poaching for its scales, which fetch a high price in Chinese markets  in exotic meat and animal products with supposed medicinal properties. So should you or I care that there are still tons of these odd mammals being  pulled from their nests by poachers to end up scaled and then  served in stews to China’s fast-growing upper class?”

Jimmy Buffett revises Margaritaville lyrics in Gulf concert: “But I know, it’s all BP’s fault.”

If the above embedded video does not show up, click here.

The Red Muntjac mascot giving a poster and comic book on legal hunting practices to a local villager. All household members who showed up to this event received a poster and comic book.

Wildlife Conservation Society’s Rare Pride campaign will protect the prey of the last tiger population in Laos by celebrating hunters who hunt wild animals legally and by promoting the reporting of poachers who threaten the food security of local communities.