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CONSERVATION IN ACTION
With your help, communities in Nicaragua are cleaning coasts and waterways as part of the International Coastal Cleanup, which we have led in the country since 2008. While this event is recognized on September 21, our cleanups began in August and will continue until the end of the year in order to better accommodate the weather and the needs of our cleanup event partners.
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Our Junior Rangers are key team members in the cleanup effort. These kids, their parents and their teachers have been out on the beach over multiple weekends, thanks to coordination by our female turtle rangers. Our staff are especially proud of the removal of debris that can injure wildlife, such as abandoned fishing nets. We would like to thank our many partners for this event, including CASCO Safety, Coca-Cola FEMSA, and the Ocean Conservancy.
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Another exciting activity we supported was the October Global Big Day. This international birding event celebrates birds each migration season and is a way to crowdsource important bird data across the world. Central America had a record Big Day, as described in this article. Our sharp-eyed team and Junior Rangers in Nicaragua recorded 3 species new to the Bird Day count in Nicaragua.
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Vincent Romera, an enthusiastic professional photographer and ornithologist, joined our team in Nicaragua last month. He has studied birds in depth on three other continents. His adoration for birds is apparent to all who meet him, and he was so excited to work in Nicaragua that he studied our area's bird field guides in depth before coming here.
Thanks to the French government and the French nonprofit HUMY, formerly known as Projets Plus Actions, he will be working with us for a year. He is currently participating in a major study of raptor migration in the area, in addition to assisting with photography and our other programs. We are deeply grateful to HUMY for making his work in Nicaragua possible.
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We would like to thank the Ocean Conservancy for supporting us as coordinators of the International Coastal Cleanup in Nicaragua for more than a decade. This year, the Ocean Conservancy granted Paso Pacífico $6960 to strengthen our cleanup event.
The International Coastal Cleanup has grown from a cleanup with a few volunteers in Texas to an international event involving over one million volunteers. In the last 30 years, the Conservancy and its volunteers have picked up over 220 million pounds of trash on the world’s beaches. We are very grateful to work in support of the Ocean Conservancy and its awareness-building program.
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Together with our in-country partner FUNZEL, we have marshaled a national alliance to protect the yellow-naped Amazon parrot in El Salvador. The national news media was quick to follow the story and several major media outlets covered the one-day alliance workshop led by Paso Pacífico biologists and attended by executive director Sarah Otterstrom. This important conservation story reached millions of people in El Salvador. El Diario de Hoy, the country's main newspaper, highlighted the yellow-naped Amazon parrot crisis on the front page of their Sunday paper. Check it out here!
El Mundo and La Página also ran stories as the alliance formed, sharing our accomplishments so far in addition to the parrots' dire situation in the country. People throughout El Salvador have expressed their support and solidarity for saving this endangered species, providing a foundation for on-the-ground protection efforts.
Photo by Vincent Romera.
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PARTNERS MAKE IT POSSIBLE
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Over the past two years, we have had the privilege of working with the American Bird Conservancy (ABC Birds) and the Southern Sierra Research Station to support restoration planning for birds in riparian habitats impacted by wildfires. ABC Birds was the lead on this program. They focus on protecting birds in the Western Hemisphere and they take action against threats such as pesticide overuse, urban sprawl, and habitat destruction.
Our project focused on burn areas in the Los Padres National Forest through funding from the US Forest Service and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Wildfires Restoration Grant program. The collaboration especially focused on three federally endangered migratory birds, including two species that we monitor and protect in Central America: the southwest willow flycatcher and the western yellow-billed cuckoo.
Paso Pacífico's role in this program was to support outreach and partnership building around wildfire restoration in Los Padres National Forest and connect with partners in Latin America as part of a "full life-cycle" bird conservation effort. For example, we facilitated financial grants to bird conservation groups in Colombia, Nicaragua, and Mexico through ABC Birds' funding. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to partner with the American Bird Conservancy and we look forward to continued collaborations on the birds' behalf.
Photo by Vincent Romera.
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