Support Our Work In Bolivia With your help, we can protect places around the world like Bolivia's Amboró and Carrasco National Parks.   The southern horned curassow (Pauxi unicornis), one of the most threatened bird species in Bolivia according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Birdlife International, lives in Amboró National Park. Child's drawing of the Horned Curassow, Community of San Isidro, Bolivia. Lasting Conservation is Local Conservation Read about how Native tree seedlings have boosted the local economy and environmental ethic in the community of Miraflores in the Bolivian tropical foothills known as the Yungas.

Amboró National Park and Carrasco National Park are two adjacent protected areas that together cover more than three million acres and represent a "mega-reserve" with a great diversity of flora and fauna.  In Amboró National Park alone, the number of bird species observed within the area exceeds 840, more than 60% of Bolivia's total. In Carrasco National Park, over 5,000 plant species have been registered in the area, placing the park among the country's most biologically diverse.

Location. In the crook of the "Andes Elbow," between the cities of Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, the Amboró-Carrasco Conservation Area landscape is a conversion point for three unique forest types: cloud forests, dry forests, and tropical Amazonian rain forests. The area offers dramatic changes in altitude ranging from 984 to 15,420 feet above sea level with deep canyons, formed by thousands of years of erosion, giving rise to natural glacier-fed lakes, streams and rivers that empty into the tributaries of the Amazon River.

Plants. Plants are so abundant in these two remote parks that scientists are still identifying new species. This region, also known as the "Fern Capital of the World," supports at least 600 fern species, some even sporting leaves large enough to shelter a human.  Orchid lovers consider the Amboró and Carrasco Parks  paradise since each one harbors at least 300 orchid species.

Animals. Park wildlife is also impressive with over 1,000 recorded animal species in Amboró and 300 species in Carrasco. Jaguars, spider monkeys, spectacled bears and tapirs roam this land of abundant rainfall. And while just one-eighth the size of Costa Rica, Amboró has almost as many bird species as the entire Central American region. Amboró is one of two remaining habitats for the rare and endangered Blue-horned Currasow (Pauxi unicornis).

Why The Nature Conservancy Works Here

The mega diversity found in Amboró and Carrasco National Parks is under constant threat from human migration and unsustainable land use activities, such as overhunting, overfishing, slash and burn agriculture, logging, and uncontrolled tourism.  Although people are prohibited from living inside the parks, 20,000 people reside in communities located in the buffer zones on the northern and southern edges of Amboró and 40,000 live in Carrasco's buffer zone. For the last 4 years, the Conservancy's Parks in Peril program has been providing technical assistance to both of these two national parks in order to ensure their long-term viability

What The Conservancy is Doing

The Conservancy has been actively working in Amboró and Carrasco National Parks, as part of the Parks in Peril program, to apply its experience in site conservation planning and institutional capacity building.   With support from support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) the Conservancy is collaborating with local partners and stakeholders in the following activities:

• Direct park protection. The Conservancy is supporting park guards by providing equipment and training in monitoring and information gathering using GPS and other tools. Park guard outreach and education work are also part of a strategy to improve community relations and local support for the parks.
• Strengthening community involvement in the management of the two parks. This involves fostering the growth and development of the Amboró and Carrasco Management Committees, which are made up of representatives from local communities. This direct link with the communities that live beside the park has helped to improve communications between the park administration and communities leading to better protection of the park.
• Encouraging conservation-compatible, community-based enterprises. The Conservancy is supporting enterprises such as ecotourism, honey production, native tree species seed collection, and local craft production. Ecotourism projects focus on developing and facilitating the implementation of a common vision for the community ecotourism enterprises of the Amboró area.
• Developing a communications strategy that will promote environmental awareness and values. Increasing local stakeholder buy-in is important to the Conservancy's work in the Amboró and Carrasco National Parks because it helps strengthen park protection and conservation efforts as well as encourage sustainable land use in surrounding areas.
• In addition, the Conservancy is working with Armonía/BirdLife International to monitor and create awareness amongst local communities and park staff of the status of the rare, Southern horned currasow, Pauxi unicornis, and to foster the urgency to conserve and further investigate this species.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Cliffs of Amboro National Park © Hermes Justiniano; Tree ferns © Andy Drumm/TNC; Child's drawing of rare Horned Curassow, courtesy of Armonia.