INTEGRATED CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME IN THE NORESTE BIOSPHERE RESERVE
(Project PE0042)
Deforestation and overgrazing in northern Peru's dry forests has soared, causing desertification. An estimated one million hectares of dense forests remain, one fifth of which lies inside the Noroeste Biosphere Reserve. The reserve is threatened not just by logging, overgrazing, and illegal hunting, but also by the influx of tourists and tourism-related projects in the region. WWF support for the area began in 1976 with a project in the Cerros de Amotape National Park. Today, WWF works with the Peruvian Foundation for the Conservation of Nature (FPCN) to promote sustainable use of natural resources, as well as educating people about the need to protect their forests. In the Cerros de Amotape National Park area, local communities have been involved in planning the buffer zone. Meanwhile, representatives of local wood extractors (lenateros) have suggested economic alternatives to logging, such as honey production and captive breeding of wild parrots. In the Tumbes National Forest, threatened by farming and grazing, WWF is backing farmer training programmes. The focus is on natural pasture management, soil conservation, setting up tree nurseries, reforestation and watershed management. In Oidor, along the Tumbes river, FPCN is working with local women to promote soil conservation and small animal (turkeys and ducks) husbandry. FPCN plans to build a multi-purpose centre in the forest to serve as a biological research station, forestry station, and control post. At the Tumbes Mangrove National Sanctuary, a decade of aggressive shrimp farming has depleted fisheries. Although a number of shrimp farms have closed since FPCN started work in the area, residue from one 35-hectare farm still in operation has blocked tidal flow to a section of the mangrove. WWF is backing FPCN's efforts to involve local communities to reafforest former shrimp farms with mangrove seedling the first time this has been attempted in Peru. The project, which is also funded by ODC-Canada, will produce a regional management plan for the Tumbes mangrove. FPCN is also working with the local shrimp larvae extractors' union to encourage them to switch to a new type of collector-net which is less damaging to other species. Nets currently used produce a trawl of which almost half are crustaceans and young fish. The trial net has a cone which permits more selective filtering of shrimp larvae while other plankton can be released back into the water.
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