Three-banded armadillos. Credit: Caatinga Association

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO , Jun 2 2014 (IPS)

The FIFA World Cup 2014 mascot was inspired by the three-banded armadillo, which is unique in its ability to roll up in a tight ball. The species is endangered in Brazil, which is hosting the upcoming global sporting event.

The idea emerged in 2012 from an online social networking campaign by the Caatinga Association, an environmental group that proposed the three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes tricinctus) – known in Brazil as tatú-bola, or ball armadillo – as the symbol of the championship whose matches will be played from Jun. 12 to Jul. 13 in 12 cities in Brazil.

FIFA, the international football federation, accepted the proposal and named the mascot Fuleco – a portmanteau of the words “futebol” (football) and “ecologia” (ecology).

The three-banded armadillo is an exclusively Brazilian species, which is threatened with extinction, Rodrigo Castro, executive secretary of the Caatinga Association, a non-profit organisation that works in the preservation of the caatinga biome in Brazil’s semiarid northeast, told Tierramérica.

“It lives in a little-known and poorly protected ecosystem [the caatinga] and has an incredible ability to roll up into a ball when it feels threatened, due to its flexible bands of skin,” he added.“Our question for FIFA is simple: the tatú-bola gave life to Fuleco – but Fuleco isn’t doing anything for the tatú-bola. Why not?” – Environmentalist Rodrigo Castro

The semiarid caatinga covers nearly 10 percent of Brazil’s national territory, encompassing an area between 700,000 and one million square km.

Millions of Fuleco plastic dolls, plush toys and other products carrying his image have generated a huge revenue inflow for FIFA, and have become a common part of the landscape in Brazil – unlike the small armadillo, which is increasingly rare in its habitat.

On the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, the Tolypeutes tricinctus is listed as vulnerable.

But the Brazilian government plans to announce a change in the animal’s status next year, from “vulnerable” to “at risk of extinction.”

“This means that if nothing is done, the animal could be extinct in the next 50 years,” Flávia Miranda, a biologist and veterinarian with Projeto Tamanduá, a conservationist project, told Tierramérica.

The Tolypeutes tricinctus, endemic to Brazil, is one of two species of armadillo that can roll up in a ball. The other is the southern three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes matacus), found in northern Argentina, southwestern Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.

A three-banded armadillo rolled into a ball – the position that gave it the name “tatú-bola” in Portuguese – can fit in the palm of a hand. Credit: Marco A. Freitas

The three-banded armadillo has a combined head and body length of 45 cm and weighs approximately 1.5 kg. The armour is composed of three ossified dermal scutes connected by flexible bands of skin. Its diet consists mainly of insects.

The species has suffered a 30 percent decline in population in the last 10 years. “We estimate that it has lost 50 percent of its habitat over the past 15 years,” said Miranda, who is also a consultant to the Caatinga Association.

The main threat to the species, said Castro, is shrinking habitat, caused by deforestation in the caatinga and the neighbouring cerrado savanna ecosystem, which is characterised by low-growing bushes and scattered twisted short trees, where the armadillo also lives.

But hunting is a factor that cannot be ignored. “Hunting armadillos is a traditional cultural practice in rural communities,” Castro said.

“The meat is very popular,” Miranda said. “Many hunt it to sell the meat, because it fetches around 50 reals [23 dollars] a kilo.”

On the eve of the World Cup, Brazil’s Environment Ministry launched a five-year National Action Plan for the Conservation of the Tatú-Bola, drawn up together with the Caatinga Association.

The national action plan is a public commitment to preserve the species. “We are going to work together with universities and public and private institutions to reduce deforestation and hunting,” Miranda said.

The plan will also lead to the creation of conservation and reforestation units.

Ugo Eichler Vercillo, general coordinator of the government’s Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, told Tierramérica that under the plan, a task force would be created to combat hunting of the armadillo.

In addition, actions will be promoted to compensate the loss of protein in poor communities where the armadillo is a target of subsistence hunting, he said.

One initiative will be “green grants” – monthly economic payments of 100 reals (45 dollars) for residents of poor rural communities, who will also be signed up to other social programmes and cash transfer schemes that target the extreme poor.

“These are populations who live on what they gather, plant and hunt,” in the remote hinterland of the states of Bahia, Pernambuco, Piauí, Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, Vercillo explained.

These low-income residents of isolated rural areas value the armadillo “because they don’t have other sources of protein,” he said.

In 2013 the Caatinga Association, the IUCN and The Nature Conservancy launched the programme “I protect the tatú-bola”, aimed at curbing the risk of extinction.

“Our project, which should last about 10 years, will map the areas where the species is found, and we will collect information on threats, to work on them,” Miranda said.

Making the Brazilian armadillo the mascot of the FIFA games is aimed at turning it into “a kind of symbol for the preservation of the caatinga, and of other species of fauna and flora that inhabits this ecosystem,” she pointed out.

With its decision, FIFA says it hopes to increase awareness of the threat of extinction faced by the three-banded armadillo.

But Castro hopes for something more from FIFA. “Our question for FIFA is simple: the tatú-bola gave life to Fuleco – but Fuleco isn’t doing anything for the tatú-bola. Why not?”

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

An Alagoas foliage-gleaner (Philydor novaesi) photographed in the Frei Caneca Private Reserve in Pernambuco. Credit: Courtesy of Carlos Gussoni

By IPS Correspondents
CAJÍO, Cuba/RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 11 2013 (IPS)

The extinction of a single species (a fish off the coast of Cuba, a bird in the Brazilian forest) creates a void that can trigger a whole series of repercussions, from the alteration of ecosystems to increased hunger.

“I can sum it up for you in one sentence: there is less of everything,” says fisherman Lázaro Andrés Gorrín. He earns his living from the waters of the Gulf of Batabanó, which bathe the coast of his humble fishing village, Cajío, in southwest Cuba.

Fishing is the traditional lifeblood of more than 577 coastal towns and villages in Cuba, but it is an endangered livelihood due to reduced fish stocks throughout the country.

“Now it takes a whole day to catch enough fish just to cover the bottom of the cooler, which means very little income,” said Gorrín as he showed Tierramérica the few tiny lane snappers (Lutjanus synagris) he had caught that day. “You can’t support a family with this,” added his wife, who was waiting on shore for him to help carry his catch home.

Overfishing is the main cause of the decreased stocks of lane snappers in the Gulf of Batabanó, as well as the almost complete disappearance of the Nassau grouper (Epinephelus striatus) throughout its entire habitat, among other losses.

The decline in fish stocks has been highly evident since 1990. Other contributors include pollution, rising sea temperatures, and higher salinity, since the damming of rivers results in less fresh water flowing to the Cuban coasts.

The size of the fish has diminished, and the species less popular among the population have become more predominant, according to research by marine scientist Rodolfo Claro.

That is why Gorrín, 41, and other coastal fishermen are “seriously thinking” about plying their trade in rivers, lakes and reservoirs or even seeking out new ways to make a living.

Some of them, however, believe they are too old to give up the livelihood passed down to them by their ancestors.

This is the case of Roberto Díaz, 53, who works alongside Gorrín. The two men head out daily in a small motorboat to an area roughly 40 miles off the coast of Cajío, where they fish with nylon fishing lines and rustic trammel nets.

“I’m still here even though it gets harder to make a good income every day. There are also a lot of regulations. There’s a ban on catching a number of different species, and on using certain equipment and methods,” Díaz told Tierramérica.

Fifteen years ago, Gorrín and Díaz, members of a fishing cooperative, went out on rafts and filled their cooler every day with snappers, groupers and other fish species that abounded in the area.

Fishermen Díaz and Gorrín display their meagre day’s catch of lane snappers. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

But the waters around Cuba were seriously overfished between the 1960s and 1980s.

In 1985 alone, 78,000 tons of fish were harvested off the country’s coasts. Since then, and in the midst of the economic crisis that began in the 1990s, the fishing sector has shrunk and prohibitions have been established for certain areas and species.

In 2012, total fish production, including farmed fish, was 48,498 tons. Lane snappers accounted for just 1,694 tons, and Nassau groupers, a mere 26 tons.

In 2007 the use of seine nets was banned because of the destruction they caused to the marine habitat.

“Trawlers and seine nets finished off the lane snappers,” said Díaz.

Since there are very few formal jobs in fishing, there has been an increase in informal and subsistence fishing activity, which also takes a bite out of fish stocks. Sometimes it is clandestine, while in other cases it is legalised as sport fishing.

Tierramérica talked to an electrician from the municipality of Quivicán, near Cajío, who goes out fishing on the weekends to supplement his family’s diet, using a tractor tire inner tube as a raft. He cannot venture more than 400 metres offshore, he noted.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t only do this for a living,” explained the electrician, who asked to remain anonymous. While fishing began as a hobby for him when he was boy, today it serves a more essential purpose: putting food on his family’s table. “I don’t know if what I do is legal,” he commented.

The life support system that generates the planet’s air, water and food is powered by an estimated 8.7 million living species. Very little is known about a large share of them. Some become extinct before we even know they exist; others, when they have just been discovered.

Farewell to a natural means of insect control

A few thousand kilometres south of Cajío, in the Atlantic Forest of northeast Brazil, the bird known as the Alagoas foliage-gleaner (Philydor novaesi) is no longer seen. Measuring 18 centimetres long and reddish-brown in colour, the bird was first discovered in 1979 in the state of Alagoas.

Back then, the species was “relatively easy to find” on the edges of clearings in the forest, said biologist Tatiana Pongiluppi, project coordinator at the conservation organisation SAVE Brasil, which forms part of the BirdLife International global partnership.

Its name derives from the fact that it “gleans” its food – primarily insects – from leaves, bark, crevices and debris.

Surveys conducted in 1992 and 1998 revealed that the species had already become rare. And it was sighted for the last time on Sep. 13, 2011, when it was filmed by photographer Ciro Albano.

The Alagoas foliage-gleaner played an important role in controlling the insect population. It also attracted bird watchers from around the world, thus generating tourism-related income.

In 1998 only single individuals of the species were observed. In 2000, just four of them were found in the Pernambuco Endemism Centre, an area rich in biodiversity north of the São Francisco River.

The main cause of the bird’s disappearance is deforestation, driven by a number of factors: the expansion of sugar cane plantations, charcoal production, and the harvesting of timber for the furniture industry, Pongiluppi told Tierramérica.

Their natural habitat is in areas with tall trees and large quantities of bromeliad plants, whose dried leaves provide the small birds with an abundance of food.

The Atlantic Forest once extended along the entire length of Brazil’s Atlantic coast, from the far north to the south, and included portions of eastern Paraguay and northeast Argentina. It covered a total area of 1.3 million square kilometres.

Today barely seven percent of its original forest cover remains, yet is still one of the planet’s greatest storehouses of biodiversity, with 20,000 species of plants, 849 of birds, 370 of amphibians, 200 of reptiles, 270 of mammals and 350 of fish.

There is not a single specimen of Philydor novaesi living in captivity. “They are insectivores, and no techniques have been developed to keep and breed them in captivity,” explained Pongiluppi.

Officially, the species is considered “critically endangered”. Extinction can only be declared when there is no doubt that the last living specimen has died, and that can take decades.

“We cannot state with authority that the individuals sighted in recent years have died, because we have no proof. But there have been no recorded sightings of this species since 2011, despite the efforts of ornithologists and bird watchers,” who have made numerous trips to the area in search of the bird, said Pongiluppi. The same unfortunate fate awaits a number of other bird species in the region.

Seven species of fauna have already been declared extinct in Brazil, specialist Ugo Eichler Vercillo from the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation told Tierramérica: a dragonfly, two earthworms, an ant, a frog and two bird species.

Taking action to combat extinction

Embattled by erratic weather and a persistent disease that has decimated the area’s coffee plantations, indigenous women in the province of Lamas, in the Amazon rainforest of northern Peru, did not sit back and cry over the loss of the crops that allowed their grandmothers to put food on the table. They set out to save them.

The women sought support from the Federation of Kechwa Indigenous Peoples of the Region of San Martín in order to revive the planting of two species of tubers, sachapapa (Discorea trífida) and dale dale (Calathea allouia), a root vegetable, michuksi (Colocasia esculenta), and the oilseed sacha inchi (Plukenetia volubilis).

In numerous villages “the seeds for these crops had completely disappeared, and they had to be obtained in other communities, sometimes far away,” notes a report from the humanitarian organisation Oxfam, which provided funding for this initiative, launched in 2011.

On half-hectare plots, the women plant sachapapa, dale dale and michuksi, which take a year to be ready to harvest, alongside other food crops with shorter growing cycles: peanuts, corn, beans and leafy vegetables.

The elders in each community helped to revive the traditional farming methods and to design an agricultural calendar. The women, organised in “mothers clubs”, elected a coordinator for each village.

While the initial plan was to grow food for their own families, the women realised that in the city of Lamas there was a demand for the traditional dishes “that grandma used to cook,” and they decided to promote the newly revived agricultural diversity at regional food fairs and competitions.

The community of Chumbakiwi, with a population of around 330, took first place at the inaugural fair by presenting 79 different crop varieties.

Each village decided what to do with the income earned. Some of them created a fund in order to acquire more seeds and continue to preserve them.

With reporting by Ivet González (Cajío), Fabíola Ortiz (Rio de Janeiro) and Milagros Salazar (Lima).

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

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A demonstration against the reopening of the highway in Iguaçu National Park. Credit: Courtesy of SOS Mata Atlântica

By Alice Marcondes
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 13 2013 (IPS)

Environmental groups have appealed to UNESCO to help stop the reopening of Caminho do Colono, a stretch of highway in southern Brazil that crosses through Iguaçu National Park, declared a World Heritage site by the UN agency in 1986.

Hydroelectric dams in the Amazon, amendments to the Forest Code, agrarian reform conflicts: over recent years, the Brazilian public has witnessed a succession of controversies pitting environmental organisations against the country’s authorities.

The most recent conflict involves the Caminho do Colono or “Settler’s Road”, a stretch of highway in the southern state of Paraná that has been closed for over a decade, but could be reopened if a bill currently under study in the Senate is passed. The bill was fast-tracked straight to the Senate following approval by a commission in the Chamber of Deputies, without full discussion in the lower house as a whole.

The origins of the 18-kilometre stretch of highway date back to 1925, when local communities used it as an informal road and for the transport of the “yerba mate” harvested in the region. (Yerba mate is a plant used to prepare a tea-like infusion popular in a number of South American countries.)

Years later the road was integrated into the Brazilian highway network, forming part of Route PR-495, which connects the city of Serranópolis do Iguaçu, on the northern edge of the park, and the town of Iguiporã, in the municipality of Marechal Cândido Rondon.

In 1986 the road was closed for the first time under a management plan drawn up for Iguaçu National Park, which was created as a nature conservation area in 1939 and is home to the largest area of the Mata Atlântica or Atlantic Forest biome in southern Brazil. The closed section of highway falls entirely within the borders of the park.

It was also in 1986 that the park was designated a World Natural Heritage site by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The road was later reopened illegally, but in 2001 the government declared its permanent closure.

The park is located in the westernmost part of Paraná, 17 kilometres from the centre of the city of Foz do Iguaçu and near the triple border with Argentina and Paraguay. It borders on Iguazu National Park in Argentina, with which it shares the breathtaking Iguazu Falls, a popular tourist destination that earned a spot on the list of Seven Natural Wonders compiled by the Swiss-based New7Wonders Foundation.

Lawmakers from the region have presented numerous bills to get Caminho do Colono reopened. One of them, PL 7.123/2010, drafted by federal deputy Assis do Couto of the ruling Workers’ Party, could be passed by the Senate this month.

The goal is to stimulate tourism and environmental education, and to allow tourists to get to the falls without having to go through Argentina, Couto told Tierramérica*.

The imminent Senate vote on the bill to reopen the road prompted some 1,000 Brazilian organisations to write to UNESCO and request its intervention.

“The author of the bill and its supporters claim that the highway will promote preservation, environmental education and sustainable regional development, although the impacts of highways on protected areas are widely documented and understood. Historical records do not demonstrate any positive effect of the Caminho do Colono on the local, regional, state or national economy,” the letter stresses.

Deputy Couto says that his bill provides for the control of traffic through the park and prohibits the use of the road by trucks.

“The road will not be paved, in order to maintain the permeability of the soil. Cars will not be allowed on it at night. In addition, the opening of the highway will mean a greater state presence, which will curb the current illegal harvesting of palm hearts. The police have even found camps of palm heart harvesters in the area,” he added.

According to Couto, the road will benefit local communities, but this argument does not convince the park’s director of conservation and management, biologist Apolonio Rodrigues.

“The highway is of no importance to the flow of production and the road network of the region. It is simply viewed as a shortcut for people travelling south to north, who would like to shorten the distance they need to drive by going through the park,” Rodrigues told Tierramérica.

“If we consider the importance of the park for humanity, there is no justification for opening the highway to benefit a small group of people,” he said.

Reopening the highway would lead to the fragmentation of the ecosystem, he maintained. “In addition, it could serve as an entryway for exotic species, and its use could lead to the sedimentation and degradation of the waterways,” he warned.

Another problem highlighted by the road’s opponents is the danger it could pose for the local population of jaguars (Panthera onca), which has already shrunk by 90 percent.

It is estimated that there are barely 18 living specimens in an area where up to 180 jaguars once roamed. In fact, the species could be completely wiped out in the region in the next 80 years, according to the coordinator of the National Centre for Carnivorous Mammal Research and Conservation, Ronaldo Morato.

The Centre is a division of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, which is responsible for the management of Iguaçu National Park.

The area “is already suffering from hunting. Urgent action is needed, and reopening the highway will not contribute to preservation,” Morato told Tierramérica.

Critics of the bill maintain that the efforts to open the road serve the interests of local soy producers, who would be provided with a shortcut for transporting their merchandise.

But Couto refutes this argument by emphasising that trucks would be prohibited. Soy producers, he says, “already have established transportation routes.”

Reopening the highway would require amending the Brazilian legislation on conservation areas in order to include the category of “parkway”. This would set a precedent for the indiscriminate opening of roads in other protected areas, warned the signatories of the letter to UNESCO, which has yet to issue a pronouncement on the matter.

Couto, for his part, believes it would remedy a void in environmental legislation, since there are already highways within the borders of other conservation areas. “One example is the Paraty-Cunha highway inside Serra da Bocaina National Park,” he said.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

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