Encourage the generation of a chain that increases the commercial value of the guanaco fiber by linking the primary production sectors with the national and international textile sectors.

Work with different actors at the local, national, and international levels, to contribute to the design of a fiber value chain that can trigger the activity. The work will consist of the identification of key public and private actors in order to provide tools for the commercialization of the product. The activities that will be developed in this stage of the project include meetings with the textile sector, application authorities, and various important local actors in this area.

-Meetings with representatives of national organizations to evaluate background, regulations, marketing, and support possibilities for wild guanaco management experiences.

-Meetings with selected fashion designers at the national (i.e Buenos Aires) or international (i.e Canada) scale, to generate a fair value chain and promote WFA experience.

-Value-added options will be identified at the national/international level through meetings with actors from the public and private sectors, to expand WFA as a “Based nature Solution".  

Wildlife camelid management actions began in the 80s, based on the philosophy of the "ICDPs", seeking to link biodiversity conservation with improving the life quality of life of local people. These projects, which initially focused on the vicuña, were based on the application of economic incentives to promote the use of wildlife. We prove that wild guanaco use could improve the numbers of those initiatives because of the wider distribution range of the species. In Argentina, the production of SAC fiber could easily double due to an increase in the number of sheared populations and an increase in the frequency of shearing. This would clearly lead to a change in the production paradigm in contrast to the current one. Guanaco fiber is amongst.The Cooperative decided to add value to the raw fiber in order to increase the value. By 2010, most of the projects had stopped due to difficulty in marketing guanaco fiber with a price of USD $40-60 per kilo. The "problem" is there are only two trade companies that buy raw fiber that is exported mainly to Italy and control the market prices. 

Promote sustainable use of wild guanaco populations through demonstrative experiences of live shearing in La Payunia.

The annual shearing of guanacos by the Payún Matrú Cooperative is being closely supervised by the Mendoza Department of Renewable Natural Resources to ensure that the potential economic income provided by guanaco wool is feasible and sustainable. At the same time, Cooperative members understand that by making "good practices" they receive "good benefits". CONICET has tested and developed methods for minimizing the stress of individual guanacos during capture and handling, that reduce negative impacts at the population level.  Our knowledge of ecological, physiological, and behavioral processes that "constrain" these camelids in La Payunia, based on more than 10 years of study, put us in a unique position for advising and teaching the cooperative and government stakeholders how to minimize impacts of live shearing on this population. We will continue training members of Payún Matrú Cooperative in "good practices" to make capture and shearing of wild guanacos within Wildlife Friendly Actions. The following activities will be carried out at this stage:


 

1)Pre-shearing surveys on population parameters, 2)Training of the personnel (without experience) in charge of guanacos handling during herding, within the corrals, and during shearing is key to the success of the activities. 3)Management of wild guanacos: Capture, shear, and release of wild guanacos will be carried out in two events, between September and November. 4)Physiological indicators: physiological stress in the function of handling conditions.5)Post-shearing surveys on population parameters such as social structure and population density.

 

-As we are working with wildlife, pre-shearing surveys on population parameters help us to select the best area to build the management structure.  

-Training of the personnel is fundamental (and the key for the success of this solution) for the good management of the animals, avoiding guanaco mortalities and operator injuries. The management of wild guanacos is different from any other domestic animal, and it is necessary to use particular structures and tools, as well as to learn specific maneuvers for their manipulation, keeping animal welfare in mind.

-Stress approach give us a key physiological indicator to reduce stress in relation to handling time.

-Post-shearing surveys give us key population parameters such as social structure and population allow us to compared with data before the live-shearing experience and define the impact on social disruption.


 

Module 2: Drone and Infrared Camera Monitoring System
  1.  Drone Monitoring and Early Warning:According to the ‘one herd, one policy’ conservation approach: since 2017, the project has started to equip each herd or single elephant active outside the protected area with a full-time monitoring team, each team is equipped with a drone for round-the-clock monitoring, and there are currently more than 70 members in the monitoring team. All monitors have received professional learning and training, mastered drone operation and monitoring skills, and are able to quickly locate Asian elephants.
  2. Infrared Camera Monitoring and Early Warning:To improve drone monitoring, we have customised an infrared camera system to ensure 24-hour monitoring. 600 infrared cameras with real-time data transmission, 21 video cameras and 177 intelligent broadcasting devices have been installed in critical areas, including traffic routes, elephant corridors and villages.
  1. Technical Support: Both drones and infrared cameras are equipped with advanced features, including high-resolution imaging, thermal imaging modes, real-time data transmission, and intelligent recognition algorithms.
  2.  Strategic Deployment: Equipment placement is scientifically planned based on elephant movement patterns and high-risk areas, ensuring coverage of critical corridors and activity hotspots.
  1. Drone Monitoring Maintenance and Training: Regular maintenance and ongoing training for monitoring personnel are essential to ensure the efficiency of monitoring efforts and the reliability of equipment performance.
  2. Infrared Camera Deployment: Network coverage and power supply need to be considered comprehensively to ensure the stable operation of the equipments.
Renewable energy technologies for human wildlife coexistence and food security

We include renewable energy technologies such us solar panels  to power electic fences, improve livestoc water availability and sensored lights to mitigate economical loses in livestoc farms caused by predation over domestic animales, at the same time, we help rural farmer families to access electricity serveces and improve their food productivity, economicla and food founts

Funding availability
Landowners willingness to include new technologies in their agricultural system

 

We have implementing replicable technological strategies to mitigate economical losses by wild felids predation reaching a reduction of the 100% of attacks from cougar and jaguar over cattle in the Cerro El Inglés Communitary reserve, protecting vulnerable individuals by solar powered electric fences and motion-sensor lights and limiting the access of domestic animals to the forest by technifying water provision for livestock and solar powered electric fences. Having a demonstrative and replicable system used for education purposes with farmers from the region.

Coservation culture

Our efforts are focused on developing a conservation culture in local communities by highlighting local biodiversity in local art expressions, educational programs, institutional alliances, local social movements engagement and scientific research.

 Engagement capacity, Funding availability, inclusion, 

 

 

We have been able to support the establishment of local community based social collectives as the Águilas Crestadas ecological young people group and the Farmer women network, who have become key collegates to promote conservation in the region.
We have also promoted inter institutional alliances that have enabled young people from the study area to access educational opportunities around nature conservation, agroecology and nature-based tourism.
 

Community based biodiversity monitoring

We develop wildcats and potential prey community based monitoring with the families associated with Serraniagua in their private natural reserves by employing a small set of five trap cameras.

Natural reserve land owners willingness to develop monitoring activities within their lands
Trap cameras availability, this is a limited resouce for our organization 
Financial resources availability
Public Order
Favorable climatic conditions

Through community-based biodiversity monitoring, many new, endemic, and/or endangered species of plants, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals have been recorded, contributing to scientific knowledge and the implementation of technologies that support wildlife identification and habitat conservation.

A notable result of this effort is the documentation of six out of the seven felid species of Colombia within the area, including the rediscovery of the jaguar in the Andean region of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Antonio, identified as an individual preying on livestock, has been tracked, revealing a movement route. We intend to explore this route as a landscape management strategy by implementing a robust trap camera monitoring program to identify potential anthropogenic impacts on wild mammals.

More precise understanding of the impact of human activities

Different from most monitoring that only focuses on the species themselves and ignores human impact. By using the gradient boosting decision tree model, the most important factors affecting human utilization were identified, and suggestions on how to effectively control and make decisions were proposed at the management level. Research has found that altitude, maximum vocal pressure level, total vocal duration, and NDVI are the main factors affecting bird richness and activity, while temperature, total vocal duration, maximum vocal pressure level, NDVI, and altitude are the main factors affecting bird activity. Compared to bird richness, selecting parameters can better explain changes in bird activity, which may be related to the fact that activity is a timely feedback of bird behavior choices, adaptability, and quality of life, while richness is more influenced by long-term factors such as habitat suitability and resource abundance. Thus accurately assessing the impact of human noise on bird richness and activity. Therefore, the project has great significance in implementing human impact control on protected areas, and can provide more accurate guidance for the control of protected areas(Figure below). 

Achieving more precise control over human influence

Bird species’ diversity and rhythms were represented in detail

By using acoustic event scene detection technology, the richness and activity characteristics of birds were identified. We have achieved higher temporal accuracy (daily, quarterly, annual) and longer time series observation and disclosure of biodiversity characteristics(Figure below). As shown in the figure, it reveals the ranking of bird song heat in different months, the differences in bird richness at different time points of the day, and the continuous song heat map of the orange winged babbler for six months.

It can be refined to display bird rhythms on a daily and annual basis.

Passive acoustic monitoring is a tool that reflects bio timing.

The bird list was supplemented through passive acoustic monitor

The bird list was supplemented through passive acoustic monitoring, and the effectiveness of the monitoring was confirmed. Compared with the ordinary line survey method, passive acoustic methods recognition is more effective. 60 species of birds were identified, belonging to 4 orders and 23 families. Among them, the identification results included 3 species of national second-class protected animals, namely the big noisy babbler, the orange winged noisy babbler, and the red billed sparrow. 

Using the vegan package in R language to draw the Species Accumulation Curve, as the monitoring days increase, the curve tends to flatten out around 50 days, indicating that the data can fully reflect the diversity of common birds in the protected area monitored by sound during that time period.(left Figure above ) 

 

Biodiversity Conservation Activities with the Participation of Islanders

Through the efforts of the government, local government, and local residents, the Amami Islands were designated as a NP in 2017. 
Subsequently, the extermination of non-native species such as mongoose and feral cat etc. became a challenge in maintaining the island's biodiversity in preparation for the registration as a World Natural Heritage site, and preserving the unique natural environment that forms the basis of the island's environmental culture.  The mongoose, the biggest challenge of all, has been exterminated under the government's initiative and will be completely eliminated by 2024. Meanwhile, measures against feral cats and monitoring of non-native plants were carried out with the cooperation of Kagoshima University, the Ministry of the Environment, local governments, and local residents. In the case of feral cat countermeasures, precedents from overseas were introduced and considerations for owners in their daily lives were shared. In terms of invasive plant monitoring, continuous training sessions for local residents have been held to improve their capabilities and share the results.
 

Shared awareness of the crisis:

 Islanders, NGOs and municipalities were able to share an awareness of the problem and their respective roles of familiar feral cats and invasive alien plants as a threat to the natural environment, which is the basis of World Natural Heritage and environmental culture.

Community ownership:
It is important to share the challenge that invasive species are a local problem.


Sharing of results:
For continued efforts, it is necessary to maintain motivation through the sharing of results.