Bulldozers are destroying the natural habitat of the Santa Marta Conure

Conservation projects

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The illegal construction of a roadway in Santa Marta destroys the natural habitat of the Santa Marta Conure (Pyrrhura viridicata). A non-governmental association ProAves informed about this issue within the last week. More than 50 representatives of this conservation group have even tried to stop buldozers with their own bodies. These roads are not approved by local authorities related to nature conservation. What is more, they directly cross the bird reserve El Dorado in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Threatened are not only birds but also the source of water for whole south of Santa Marta.

The bird reserve El Dorado represents one of the few places with greatest biodiversity in Colombia. This is the only locality where we can find the Santa Marta Conure, very rare parakeet of Pyrrhura genus. Conservationists estimate their total number on 3300-6700 adult birds and IUCN classifies them as Endangered. Since 1992, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta has been listed as a IUCN biosphere reserve. Thanks to the association ProAves, a special bird reserve was established there as well in 2006. Today, it has about 2250 acres.

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The private company wants to get land in the reserve

ProAves has started to hang artificial nestboxes for the Santa Marta Conure. However, such attemps are degraded by negative impacts of infrastructure. Conservationists summarize the most important cosequences of local deforastion:

• Habitat fragmentation, continuity of the resident birds habitat is lost, especially of the endemic birds.
• Nesting sites and food for birds and other groups were altered.
• Recovery of the felled forest takes at least 30 years .
• Besides the photos that are attached to the complaint, demonstrate that there was no environmental permit to advance this road, the general and technical requirements stipulated in Decree August 5, 2010. “Whereby Title VII regulates Act 99 of 1993 on environmental permits” were never met.

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Roadway construction in Santa Marta reserve (c) ProAves.org

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ProAves representatives also know who should be blamed for this: „These jobs within the Bird Reserve El Dorado property of ProAves, brought on by Mr. MICHAEL WEBERS, of German origin and foriegner’s identification of Mexico and member of the La Victoria Coffee Company, who argues that this land belongs to him. The damage caused by Mr WEBER, is of great impact directly affecting all conservation processes National Parks and ProAves have done in this important area for decades.“

There are 300 bird species living in El Dorado reserve.

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Title photo (c) ProAves.org

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