In 1998, on the age of twenty-two, conservation biologist Ximena Velez-Liendo got here face-to-face with South The us’s greatest carnivore on her first day of box analysis in Bolivia. Her existence modified without end when she became round to look “this pretty, wonderful undergo popping out of the wooded area,” Velez-Liendo says. “It was once like love in the beginning sight.” She idea in that second: “If I will be able to do anything else for you, I’ll do it.”
Sometimes called spectacled bears, Andean bears are simply identified by means of the hoop of light fur that frequently encircles one or each eyes. Bolivia is house to about 3,000 grownup bears, or kind of one-third of the sector’s general Andean bears, whose vary arcs thru 5 nations alongside the western fringe of South The us. Indexed as prone by means of the Global Union for Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, the species (Tremarctos ornatus) suffers basically from habitat loss and conflicts with people, who once in a while kill the bears in retaliation when bears raid vegetation or hunt farm animals.
However whilst the bears can glance intimidating (adults weigh as much as 200 kilograms), Velez-Liendo says they like to grind thru vegetation moderately than meat with their tough jaw muscular tissues. Regardless that Andean bears belong to the order Carnivora and are “completely succesful” of searching meat, they’ve, like many different bears, an omnivorous nutrition.
When Velez-Liendo first dedicated to serving to the bears, nobody knew what number of lived in her house nation of Bolivia or the place they roamed. She replied the ones questions with a national review that estimated the inhabitants and recognized the place the bears can get admission to meals, safe haven and water. Her analyses additionally pinpointed Bolivia’s southern dry forests because the position the place the bears face the most important threats from people. So she made up our minds to place her information into motion: Velez-Liendo began asking locals how she may just lend a hand them offer protection to this keystone species.
Velez-Liendo is a “famend Andean undergo skilled” and an award-winning conservationist, says John Hechtel, president of the Global Affiliation for Undergo Analysis and Control. She is a cochair of the Andean Undergo Professional Workforce for the IUCN, a analysis affiliate on the College of Oxford’s Flora and fauna Conservation Analysis Unit, a conservation fellow at Chester Zoo in Cheshire, England, and director of the Andean Carnivore Conservation Program in Bolivia. Along with her sturdy talents as a biologist and spatial analyst, Velez-Liendo additionally “truly cares in regards to the well-being of our surroundings … and the area people” Hechtel says, which makes her “a actually efficient recommend for brand new, ingenious approaches to undergo conservation.”
Because of Velez-Liendo’s paintings, Andean bears went from just about extinct within the southernmost a part of their vary to wholesome and improving. Her inhabitants and habitat checks now tell world, regional and native efforts to preserve Bolivia’s undergo.
From gorillas to bears
Velez-Liendo all the time knew she sought after to paintings with animals. Her earliest recollections are of enjoying within the lowland forests close to her village in southeastern Bolivia as a kid — “in naked toes, simply poking bugs or crossing the river.” When her family members moved to Oruro, a town within the highlands at simply over 3,700 meters elevation, she took to chasing reptiles, proceeding to foster her “appreciation of nature,” she says. She deliberate to wait veterinary college till a chum offered her to biology as a occupation trail. Whilst incomes her undergraduate level from Universidad Mayor de San Simón in Cochabamba, Velez-Liendo had her middle set on finding out gorillas in Rwanda — till that fateful day she met her first undergo in Carrasco Nationwide Park.
She made up our minds to be informed geographic research and mapping talents and, as a part of her grasp’s analysis on the College of Leicester in England, she used those gear to research what was responsible for deforestation round Carrasco Nationwide Park. She connected habitat destruction within the area to a growth in coca cultivation following the ultimate of mines within the highlands at the side of the of entirety of a brand new highway connecting the towns of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.
Velez-Liendo then spent virtually 3 years “touring all of the jap slope of the Bolivian Andes” to provide the primary — and nonetheless solely — nationwide review of Andean bears as a part of her Ph.D. in biology on the College of Antwerp in Belgium. This supposed knocking on doorways in rural communities asking folks if they’d noticed any bears, then verifying anecdotal proof within the box. At each and every spot the place a sighting was once reported, she looked for undergo indicators, in particular on the lookout for flowering vegetation that were munched by means of the charismatic mammals. She then recognized the most efficient puts to spend money on protective or restoring undergo habitat by means of depending on habitat fashions, panorama connectivity research and human enlargement fashions. A most inhabitants of three,165 grownup bears occupy 13 key chunks of habitat masking 21,113 sq. kilometers in Bolivia, consistent with two research printed by means of Velez-Liendo in Ursus in 2013 and 2014.
She zeroed in at the dry forested valleys of Tarija, a area in southern Bolivia that borders Argentina, as the most efficient habitat for bears outdoor secure parks. Most effective 6 p.c of the Andes’ authentic dry wooded area is left, scattered in a couple of patches in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. It’s house to monkeys, foxes, birds and a half-dozen wild cat species, at the side of the Andean undergo. However the forests had been closely utilized by folks, says Velez-Liendo. The IUCN was once taking into consideration record the bears in Tarija as extinct.
In 2016, Velez-Liendo won a small grant from the Chester Zoo to arrange digital camera traps to look if any bears had been nonetheless in Tarija. To start with “the wooded area was once simply empty,” she says. Then in February 2017, a photograph of a mom and cub sparked hope. The similar day that picture was once taken, Velez-Liendo discovered she was once short-listed for the Whitley Awards, prestigious prizes from the Whitley Fund for Nature which might be identified amongst conservationists because the “Inexperienced Oscars.” She was once considered one of seven 2017 award winners, which gave her 35,000 British kilos (about $27,000 on the charge in Would possibly 2017) in challenge investment in addition to conservation coaching. This was once her “golden price ticket” to release the Andean Carnivore Conservation Program, she says, and concentrate on serving to folks coexist with bears and different carnivores.
Serving to with honey
Regardless that Tarija’s forests had been promising undergo habitat, they had been additionally a scorching spot for conflicts between folks and bears. Native villagers confirmed Velez-Liendo undergo skins placing of their residing rooms, describing how bears had been a danger to their farm animals and vegetation. When some other neighborhood in Tarija confirmed her a stack of brand-new bee bins that folks didn’t understand how to make use of, she hatched an concept: May promoting honey lend a hand save bears?
Coaching farmers as beekeepers was once catching on in different portions of Bolivia as an eco-friendly manner to supply dependable source of revenue for rural landowners who would possibly differently flip to clearing extra wooded area. Velez-Liendo requested Patricia Sanchez, an economist who had revel in educating beekeeping in Bolivia’s highlands, to sign up for the Andean Carnivore Conservation Program in 2017. This system covers 70 p.c of the price of new apparatus and trains locals methods to take care of hives, extract honey and put it on the market on the market. It additionally helps different varieties of nature-friendly agricultural practices, like fencing farm animals and pruning fruit bushes in order that they don’t draw in bears. In alternate, neighborhood participants agree to offer protection to the wooded area and now not hurt Andean bears. Velez-Liendo additionally trains locals methods to accumulate information and lend a hand track the ecosystem. Greater than 100 households had been enrolled in this system in 2023.
“If folks don’t see the price of defending an animal, protective an ecosystem … then they’re now not going to do it,” Velez-Liendo says.
The sale of Valle de Osos–branded honey in the community supplies beekeeping households with source of revenue. Sanchez, who visits each and every of the taking part communities a minimum of two times per thirty days, notes that the beekeeping efforts are an financial building alternative that may enhance younger individuals who wish to keep of their communities as an alternative of leaving to discover a process within the town.
As of late, greater than 60 Andean bears wander thru Tarija’s forests, a exceptional build up over the 5 bears documented in 2017. Via decreasing the retaliatory killing of bears, “we controlled to mainly save this undergo inhabitants from extinction,” Velez-Liendo says. Having extra bears advantages all of the ecosystem in Tarija, for the reason that bears unfold seeds that lend a hand forests thrive.
Her function is to copy Tarija’s fashion within the Chuquisaca and Cochabamba areas to the north. Attractive extra rural communities can give “stepping stones” of habitat to attach remoted undergo populations, she says.
A “bear-ologist” who works with folks
Velez-Liendo says the entire undergo biologists she is aware of in Bolivia are girls, notable in a rustic the place it’s uncommon to look a girl riding a automotive. She jokes that pursuing Andean bears over Bolivia’s rugged terrain “isn’t for the faint of middle.” Her mentor at the start of her occupation and past was once Susanna Paisley, the primary biologist to place a radio collar on an Andean undergo within the wild. Paisley, based totally in Canterbury, England, says that considered one of Velez-Liendo’s maximum spectacular achievements is the agree with she’s cultivated amongst folks in southern Bolivia’s agricultural communities. Wholesome ecosystems at the moment are related to extra financial safety in that area, in particular within the face of continual droughts and local weather exchange.
“There’s a large number of stumbling blocks to this type of paintings,” Paisley says. Many faraway portions of Bolivia don’t have any infrastructure and “a large number of machismo,” which calls for decision to get effects. “You’ve were given to be a maverick.” She calls Velez-Liendo “a drive of nature” with an experimental and collaborative method.
Velez-Liendo says considered one of her largest private demanding situations was once shifting from being a “bear-ologist” who wasn’t all that considering operating with folks to knowing that individuals are the answer for saving the animals she loves. “Conservation comes from … the communities that reside with this biodiversity,” she says. “I feel that’s how conservation is converting: from the palms of biologists to the palms of folks.”
The Andean Carnivore Conservation Program not too long ago won a three-year grant from the Chester Zoo. Now that she will be able to take a breather from fundraising to stay the challenge going, Velez-Liendo plans to concentrate on publishing effects from Tarija. She additionally desires to put in writing an academic e book to lend a hand a much wider target audience perceive the bears. “There are such a lot of issues bears can train us, and the primary one is to take existence simple,” she says. “Simply steer clear of war of words … and sleep properly.”