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Peru

Amantani Island

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Conservation benefit: Protection of endangered bird nests, promotion of organic agriculture, environmental education, trash reduction, native tree replanting on 2.5 acres

Community benefit: Interpretive center, new trails and signs, trash and recycling removal equipment

Date Approved: 02.2021

Ecotourism

This project supports a local conservation-based tourism initiative.

River/Lake

This project protects freshwater habitat around a river or lake.

Lake Titicaca, which sits high in the Andes Mountains, was a sacred spot for the Incas. This cold, deep lake is the largest lake in South America. It is home to more than 530 aquatic species and large populations of water birds, including the endemic and endangered flightless Titicaca grebe. The huge Titicaca water frog, which stretches up to two feet long, also lives there. But the lake’s famed biodiversity is threatened by industrial, agricultural, and household pollution.

To reduce pollution, Seacology is working with communities on Amantani, one of the lake’s many islands. About 4,200 people, indigenous Quechan speakers, call this island home. This project encourages villagers to use traditional terraced farm plots to grow native crops like potatoes and quinoa, without pesticides. Many of these terraced fields, which cover the island’s steep hills, were abandoned after heavy rains damaged them. Restoring them will reduce erosion that pours sediment into the lake. And shifting to organic agricultural practices will mean less pesticide runoff.

This project also provides garbage cans and equipment for separating recyclables. The municipality will pick up the garbage and see that it is disposed of properly off the island.

The third aspect of the project involves promoting small-scale tourism and environmental education. The community will build a new interpretive center next to an ancient emblematic stone called “Incatiana.”  (Sacred spots at Machu Picchu have similar stone markers.) They will also build trails around the island, and replant two kinds of native trees on 2.5 acres of deforested land near the interpretive center.

The center will educate visitors and students about the ancestral use of the island and modern threats to the environment. Materials will also warn tourists against harming the endangered Titicaca grebe by taking eggs or inadvertently trampling the nests of these flightless birds.

Project Updates

June 2022

According to field rep Enrique Michaud, the community is very happy with its new interpretive center. Tree planting has begun along the interpretive trail that goes around the island is continuing with seedlings of three native species that are being grown in nurseries. The stone trail itself now offers rest stops with toilets and recycling bins. At its highest point, visitors are invited to place a stone and make a wish.

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February 2022

Our field representative Enrique Michaud visited the island and reports that the new interpretive center is complete and officially opened in November 2021. Inside are photos, infographics, and other educational materials about geology, animals, agriculture, culture, dance, and handicrafts. Tree seedlings were planted in December. The community is moving forward on trash collection and will put recycling bins along the trail. They are also still working on the trail.

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September 2021

Trash cleanup activities are making good progress. Island communities held a cleanup day, on the interpretive trail with participants from 10 communities. Two trash receptacles, to collect empty plastic bottles, arrived from the mainland and were installed at the entrance to the island and in the main square.

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June 2021

Community members are working out processes for garbage collection and discussing what information—biological, cultural, and archeological—to include in the interpretive center. A documentary filmmaker who worked on Seacology’s Isla Foca project in Peru is helping with the trails, signs, and interpretive materials. He will be going to the island soon and will show his films there.

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