Saving rainforest, buy and save rainforest with the World Land Trust

Urgent appeal to save Magdalena Rainforest in Colombia

We are raising funds to buy a critically endangered lowland tropical rainforest with some of the planet’s most threatened species. Unprotected and presently earmarked for timber and cattle ranching, we urgently need to acquire these forest from loggers for just $100 an acre. (Donate now)

Project Snapshot

LOCATION: Magdelana valley, Boyaca Department;
SIZE: 15,000 acres;
KEY SPECIES: Ariegated Spider Monkey (Ateles hybridus ) CR; Blue-billed Curassow (Crax alberti) CR; Spectacled Bear (mother and two cubs filmed recently); Magdalena Lowland Tapir (Tapirus terrestris columbianus); Magdalena Bocadito fish (Prochilodus magdalenae) CR; and many other endemic and threatened species;
HABITAT: Lowland tropical rainforest;
THREATS: llegal logging and clearing for cattle ranching and coca plantations;
ACTION: Expand the reserve for the present 3,824 acres to over 15,000 acres. The reserve has good ecotourism infrastructure including air conditioned lodge, research facilities, trails and internet;
IMMEDIATE PRIORITIES: Expand current reserve by 3,500 acres;
LOCAL PARTNER: Fundacion ProAves;
FINANCIAL NEED: Purchase of 11,800 acres at approximately $50 per acre. $248,000 remaining to be raised.

Project Summary

Since 2003, our partner Fundación ProAves has been protecting lowland humid rainforests in the Magdalena valley of central Colombia, an ecoregion with exceptional biological diversity, high levels of endemism and completely unprotected. In 2003, with American Bird Conservancy and World Land Trust-US support, ProAves acquired properties to establish the “El Paujil Nature Reserve” composed of 3,000 acres of largely primary rainforest which provides the sole protection for the Critically Endangered Variegated Spider Monkey (one of the 25 most endangered primates on the planet), the Blue-billed Curassow (locally known as Paujil) and many other IUCN threatened mammals, fish, reptiles and birds. The reserve was the first protected area for this region and just 85 miles north of the capital Bogota.

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Intensive research and monitoring efforts on the curassow in the reserve has estimated a total of 46 individuals, with an annual population increase of 23% thanks to effective protection. Intensive research on the Variegated Spider Monkey has also highlighted that this is the last viable population of the species. However, both species need a much greater area than the reserve presently affords. Despite intensive community outreach, logging and forest clearance for ranching continues unabated around the reserve. ProAves has mapped the area of surviving rainforest around the reserve and developed a conservation plan to ensure viable populations of the most threatened species. With your support we can acquire and effectively protect several key properties to significantly expand the existing reserve by over 11,800 acres of critical rainforest habitat, to protect 15,600 acres forever.

Additional background information

The 700 mile-long Magdalena valley, sandwiched between the Central and Eastern Andes of central Colombia, was once a vast carpet of lush lowland rainforest, containing one of the richest lowland biotas outside of the Amazon, with exceptional levels of species richness and endemism.

By 1536 the Spanish conquistadores ventured up the Magdalena river and fought their way through its lush forests to reach Bogotá and on into Ecuador and Peru. The Magdalena river and subsequent adjacent highways became the main conduit for commerce and communication for the densely populated interior of Colombia, including the capital city of Bogotá. Gradually its dense tropical forests across the wide flood-plains and slopes were converted to cattle ranches. From the 1960s, the Colombian government sponsored a massive internationally-financed colonization and infrastructure program in the Magdalena valley that resulted in the elimination of nearly four million hectares of forest in little over a decade. Today, infrastructure and colonization continues unabated in the region that is now almost completely deforested with only a few fragments remaining.
An estimated 98% of Magdalena’s unique and diverse rainforests have already vanished.

With an emergency land-acquisition request in 2003, ProAves received support from American Bird Conservancy and World land Trust-US to buy rainforest from a timber company to establish the “El Paujil Nature Reserve”; the first protected area in the region and beside one of the regions last fragments of primary forest. While the community fully supports the reserve and its members have stopped hunting the area’s unique and endangered biodiversity, the Blue-billed Curassow and Magdalena Spider Monkey, continue to be threatened by timber exploitation in the remaining forested lands around the reserve.

The Paujil reserve (now registered within the National Network of Protected Areas - SINAP) represents the sole protected area of lowland forest in the 200,000 square mile valley. This oversight was captured by the IUCN Global Gap Analysis that highlighted the urgent needs of the region at the World Parks Congress in South Africa (2003).

The Paujil Reserve and surrounding forests now represents the last relict forest for many of the lowland humid forest Magdalena endemic species. Six global and/or national Critically Endangered species, four Endangered species, and nine Vulnerable species are found there, including the Blue-billed Curassow (CR), Variegated Spider-Monkey (CR), Magdalena Lowland Tapir (CR subspecies), and the Magdalena Bocadito (a fish) (CR). This is also considered the Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) site for the Blue-billed Curassow.

For the past four years, ProAves has been undertaking an intensive environmental education campaign that has included 171 workshops, an annual “Paujil festival”, 13 large wall murals, 35 school meetings, plus regular visits by the Loro Bus. In 2008, we hope the campaign will expand greatly as RARE initiates a PRIDE campaign for the Curassow and we are stepping up engaging the local community developing a “Women for conservation” initiative in local towns to train local women in sustainable and environmentally-friendly activities to assist income generation. In addition, ProAves is also working to engage local people in ecotourism activities.

In recent years, ProAves has been exploring the region, identifying key areas for biodiversity and mapping properties with a view to protecting remaining forested tracts that form the core range of the Blue-billed Curassow.