The truck pulled into the village and rolled to a stop, with conservationists from Spectacled Bear Conservation (SBC) jumping out to distribute supplies to outstretched hands. Deep concern enveloped this rural community as thick as the smoke wreathing the sky above. This year, Peru has endured a frenzy of wildfires raging across the Amazon and the Andes; with nearly no response measures in place, the government declared a state of emergency that lit panic across communities in the fire’s path. Remote mountain regions like Laquipampa receive little attention during crises, so SBC is defending Laquipampa’s families and its fragile spectacled bear population from wildfires.
Community members lining up to receive disaster relief supplies from Spectacled Bear Conservation staff.
SBC’s Laquipampa conservation area lies in northern Peru, a 75,000-acre landscape encompassing a national protected area, Indigenous-owned community land, and the Calicantro private land that SBC is in the process of purchasing. Calicantro is particularly vital because it’s the key feeding area for 150 bears that roam throughout all three sections of Laquipampa. This is the last bear population living in this equatorial dry forest ecosystem, and Laquipampa is their last intact landscape, so protecting both is SBC’s highest priority. SBC believes this population will increase over time since they have a high gradient of food sources—Calicantro at the base of the mountains, and another area at the top—so long as major threats like wildfires don’t destroy their forests.
In addition to habitat loss, wildfires can increase human-bear conflict as the bears are driven out of their forests and toward livestock.
Dread set in when multiple large wildfires were recently recorded in community lands adjacent to the Laquipampa conservation area. Most fires are accidentally caused by local farmers, who often burn sections of their property to plant crops. These fires sometimes go wild, blossoming into disasters whose effects are worsened thanks to drier conditions caused by severe drought and climate change. The remoteness of these villages makes emergency response from the government challenging, and recent weakening of Peru’s environmental policies to allow for easier land clearance has led to more careless and uncontrolled burns, with 22 of Peru’s 24 regions reporting forest fires this year. With so much at stake for Laquipampa’s bears and people, SBC mobilized quickly to help this region surrounded by fire.
Local people in Laquipampa dousing a fire on their land.
SBC delivered emergency food, medical supplies, and firefighting equipment to the most vulnerable villages. They partnered with regional authorities to teach communities about fire prevention and the threat that fires pose to Laquipampa’s bears, not just their own property. SBC also launched local radio broadcasts, reaching roughly 40,000 people about fire safety best practices and the urgency of reporting smoke sightings. These measures have prevented any fires from entering the Laquipampa conservation area, but more work is needed to protect the bears in the long-term. With many people living in or near Laquipampa bear habitat, the threat of human-caused wildfires is ongoing, so SBC is collaborating with the government to establish a robust community fire prevention program. This will include educational training and the formation of community fire brigades to improve local readiness for future disasters. Along with coordinating community wildfire response, SBC is working with the government to increase protections for the 20,000-acre protected area within Laquipampa, which is currently only staffed by three rangers. By helping these rangers train local people to safely clear fields, SBC can prevent more wildfires from starting in the bears’ forest.
The Calicantro private land located within SBC’s Laquipampa conservation area.
By educating communities to prevent and mitigate wildfires, SBC is empowering people to protect their homes and lives and safeguarding a key spectacled bear population’s fate from being determined by an unfortunate shift in the wind.
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