In 2007, as an exchange student in South America on a quest for meaning and adventure, I met a backpacker on the night bus to Bolivia who told me about an animal refuge called Inti Wara Yassi in the Amazon rainforest.
Intrigued, I decided to go there and volunteer.
Based in the humid riverside town of Villa Tunari, a couple hours from the city of Cochabamba, the largely volunteer-run nonprofit intercepts animals from the illegal wildlife trade and, where possible, rehabilitates them to life back in the forest.
My job there was to take a baby puma (Puma concolor) – named Tupac not after the rapper, but the original Inca king – for daily walks through the forest.
This golden-retriever-sized creature had been seized and sold as a baby to a couple living in an apartment in Sucre. They’d eventually realized that it might not be the ideal place to keep a wild animal and given him to the sanctuary to care for.
My treks with Tupac were carefully planned and timed, because none of the big cats residing at the sanctuary (seven pumas and one belligerent jaguar) could cross paths with each other without a showdown.
These species would never be released back into the wild, as their displacement meant they’d missed out on vital territorial knowledge and would likely be killed by other wildcats or cause trouble in towns if they were ever freed.
A small black spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) arrived during my time there. He had been trained by the circus to walk on his hind legs and seemed likely to suffer a similar fate.
For the capuchins (Sapajus cay) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri boliviensis), there was a little more hope.
Many had been trained as pickpockets to help out thieves in the markets of La Paz and were deft at sliding skinny fingers into bags, ignoring any coins and retrieving the more-valuable notes. Their more flexible social system gave them a better shot at reintegration.
Today, Inti Wara Yassi is a well-known NGO with three sanctuaries spanning a combined 1,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest. It runs an array of educational programs, research projects and direct action to combat the illegal wildlife trade.
At this point, however, the organization is nowhere near doing itself out of a job. A diverse range of animals continues to arrive at the sanctuary, from tortoises and armadillos spared from the local bushmeat industry to monkeys, birds and big cats that have been sold or well-intentionally ‘rescued’ as pets – sometimes displayed proudly as living decorative features in restaurants or resorts.
“People will say, oh I saved this monkey from the market, they were going to eat it, and now I love it like it’s my own child,” says Ingrid Bustos Hernández, Inti Wara Yassi’s biologist.
“So there’s still a real lack of knowledge, which is one of our biggest challenges here.”
It’s difficult to get a sense of whether the trade is increasing or decreasing, says Inti Warra Yassi’s director of communications, Ana Encina.
“Certainly, the number of listed cases for illegal trafficking have grown, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the amount of trafficking has increased, because the authorities are starting to act and to confiscate trafficked animals more than they did before.”
What’s clear is that the practice – and, critically, the demand that spurs it – is not going away.
A 2019 IUCN report found that wildlife poaching and trafficking are still widespread, and pose a serious threat to the country’s biodiversity.
Last year, for instance, World Animal Protection (WAP) found that a prison in the Bolivian city of Trinidad was paying inmates to craft fashion items to sell in local markets – from the skins of jaguars, snakes, caimans and peccaries.
“This illegal work is fuelling the growing domestic and international demand for animal body parts, which is driving targeted poaching and illegal trafficking throughout Latin America and threatens conservation efforts,” said WAP’s global animal welfare advisor, Roberto Vieto, in a press release.
“Bolivia is classed as a transit country, acting as both a major source and bridge for the illegal wildlife trade between Brazil and Peru, though wildlife smuggling occurs across all its borders, which also include Argentina, Chile and Paraguay.”
Jaguar trafficking is particularly pervasive and problematic. The animals’ skin, teeth and bones receive high prices on the black market in parts of Asia, particularly China.
These big American cats are increasingly used in traditional medicine instead of tigers, which are now harder to come by due to declining populations and tightened regulations and enforcement.
Worryingly, there’s also “a growing trend of local traditional medicine being made with wild animals in the country and being sold to cure different diseases,” said Emi Kondo, director of a recent documentary on the topic – Jaguar Spirit: An Awakening Journey – in an interview with Mongabay.
In the film, Kondo traced the disconnection of local Indigenous people from jaguars, which “used to be revered as gods” but have since come to be viewed as a threat or as a source of income.
She shared examples of educational projects and monitoring programs that sought to rekindle understanding, connection and ultimately better protection of the species.
The film closed, however, with deep concern about the systemic challenges and expanding local demand for the species, of which there are estimated to be just 2,000 to 3,000 individuals left in the country’s forests.
“This problem has various roots,” says Bustos Hernández. “It has a lot to do with the governmental policies currently in place, which unfortunately don’t align well with protecting biodiversity.
“And there are some laws that look great on paper but sadly are not being enforced in reality. So, at the moment, one of our goals is to start generating more information that can help our policymakers to make better decisions.”
Next week, delegates will gather for the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Cali, Colombia, where safeguarding endangered species from extinction will be a top priority.
Ending the illegal wildlife trade – one of the most profitable illegal activities in the world – is a key element of this quest.
It will require a collaborative, educative and hands-on approach that addresses both supply and demand and deploys the resources and capacity in keeping with its gravity and urgency.
That will ensure that future generations of animals like Tupac will not be displaced or eradicated from the ecosystems to which they belong.
“At the local level, in rural communities across Latin America, we have a lot to do in terms of education,” says Bustos Hernández. “Many people still think it’s normal to have a paraba (macaw, Ara spp.) for a pet, or to eat monkey meat.”
“So, we’re starting to work more on the educational side of things – and we’d like to do a lot more.”
The heart of the challenge is bringing down local and international demand for wild animals – whether that’s as pets or for food or medicine, says Encinas.
“All the traffickers are concerned about is that they’re earning money, so until people stop paying for wildlife, the trade will continue.”
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