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CONSERVATION IN ACTION
Fifteen years ago, we began community-based efforts to build our first wildlife corridor in southwestern Nicaragua. In 2017, our first private reserve, the Mono Bayo Reserve, was established. This month, the IUCN-Netherlands Land Acquisition Fund gave us a generous grant to expand this protected area. Through this gift, we will be able to secure 42 more hectares (104 acres) for wildlife!
We know you'll be thrilled about this. Our Mono Bayo Reserve protects forests that are vital to the critically endangered mono bayo (the black-handed spider monkey). Its location is strategic in the corridor: the reserve includes a major section of the Río Ostayo watershed, which is important for local biodiversity. The new expansion will increase these protections and provide more jobs in wildlife protection, reforestation and ecotourism.
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Since its beginning a few short years ago, the Mono Bayo Reserve has served as a center for conservation and education. Hundreds of Junior Rangers have visited the sanctuary. A portion of the reserve is under restoration and has benefited from more than ten thousand new trees, planted thanks to friends like you who purchased trees through our tree-planting campaigns or through Offset Alliance. We are grateful to IUCN-Netherlands and the Dutch National Postcode Lottery for helping us anchor the corridor through this valuable nature reserve.
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José del Carmen Romero, also known as Don Carmelo, is our community outreach coordinator in eastern El Salvador. We were first introduced to him through a friend in Ventura, California, who worked with Carmelo during his Peace Corps service in El Salvador twenty years ago. Today, Carmelo helps Paso Pacífico connect with farmers to learn about their concerns surrounding forests and discuss ways to stop poachers from entering their forested properties.
Carmelo's friendly and relaxed personality helps him build friendships quickly. He has held meetings with farmers across a large part of the eastern El Salvador corridor. Carmelo is a giver: to cheer our days, he will often bring our field crew homemade tortillas and cheese from his dairy cows.
Our end-of-the-year campaign focuses on protecting spider monkeys from poachers. Carmelo is already at work with farmers to learn where hunters enter the forest and to select the new locations for signage and rangers. Please donate by December 31st to support Carmelo as he works with local people to protect baby spider monkeys from poachers.
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Throughout this difficult year, we have been humbled by your kindness and support. Thank you.
At the start of the pandemic, we launched a campaign to give aid to the most vulnerable families impacted by Covid-19, and you and a generous foundation donated, making it possible for us to deliver months of food relief to over three hundred families. In June, we lost young ornithologist Luis Díaz to Covid-19, and people gave generously to help his bereaved mother. And when Nicaragua was hit by two consecutive hurricanes this fall, partners stepped in to provide emergency food and supplies.
As the year comes to a close, even while Paso Pacífico feels the weight of this pandemic, we are buoyed by the solidarity of our friends. Through you, endangered animals like the black-handed spider monkey are getting a chance.
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Nicaraguan architect Marcela Argüello has been selected as a Fellow with the
Coastal Solutions Fellows Program class of 2021. Argüello will collaborate with Paso Pacífico and hotel partners to increase community engagement in conservation efforts at Pueblos Verdes.
Located just north of San Juan del Sur, Pueblos Verdes has potential to become a thriving biodiversity-based ecotourism center. Its coastal wetlands are important habitat, and the work you support will help restore and protect the land for shorebirds. Along with program sponsor Cornell Lab of Ornithology, design strategist Edgar Mora Altamirano and our executive director, Dr. Sarah Otterstrom, will support her as advisors throughout her fellowship. Congratulations, Marcela!
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PARTNERS MAKE IT POSSIBLE
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The IUCN-Netherlands Land Acquisition Fund has helped Paso Pacífico acquire and expand the Mono Bayo Reserve in the Paso del Istmo wildlife corridor. The fund recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, and over this time has helped secure 42,000 hectares of land in 36 countries for conservation. Led by conservationist Marc Hoogeslag, the program has funded over 100 small and medium nonprofit organization working on the front lines to protect nature. We are grateful to be among these beneficiaries. We invite you to take a moment to explore the Land Acquisition Fund anniversary video and report, which highlight the impact of this fund around the world.
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Your estate plan could provide both tax savings for you and legacy support for wildlife and communities in Central America. Please contact Executive Director Dr. Sarah Otterstrom at sarah@pasopacifico.org with any questions.
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