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The Yellow-eared Parrot Ognorhynchus icterotis, a unique macaw-sized parrot, faces imminent global extinction owing to severe habitat loss and hunting across its limited known distribution in the High Andes of Ecuador and Colombia.
Since 1996, the LPF has been active in Ecuador, providing funds for land purchases, habitat rehabilitation and education programmes to support the efforts to save the then-last known population of 25 Yellow-eared parrots. In 1999, while evidence became ever stronger that the Ecuadorian population had eventually become extinct in spite of the field team's efforts, an expedition co-funded by LPF to the central Andes of Colombia was able to detect a new population of 81 birds, rekindling the hopes that the species could be saved.
While the site in Ecuador is being monitored and maintained for a possible return of this partially nomadic parrot, conservation efforts have since focused on the population in Colombia. Since the discovery of the first Colombian population in April 1999, a highly successful community-based conservation and research programme led by Dr Paul Salaman of Fundación ProAves has become firmly established in the area. The field team has studied the ecology, breeding biology and daily and seasonal movements of the species, partly using radio-tracking, and was able to show that the species is less nomadic than previously thought. Active protection measures during the two annual breeding seasons, which resulted in very high recruitment rates, and the discovery of another subpopulation in Colombia has led the overall population of Yellow-eared parrots to increase to about 600 birds by early 2005.
However, research also proved the high dependency of the species on Colombia's highly endangered national tree, the Wax Palm (Ceroxylon spp.), for roosting, nesting and feeding. Conservation of the parrot must therefore also address the need to ensure the long-term survival of the wax palm, which reaches up to 60 m in height and is the world's tallest palm. Several concepts are being studied and applied to protect and restore essential natural habitats, including the declaration of private protected areas, and the collaboration with the local communities through a land stewardship scheme, under which local landowners allocate a small portion of their land to assisted forest regeneration. To provide an interim short-term solution to a possible lack of suitable nesting opportunities, the project has provided many artificial nest boxes to encourage breeding, particularly at one the known sites. Although the initial rate of occupancy of the boxes was slow, this has begun to increase, and successful fledging of young from boxes has occurred.
To complement these activities, a far-reaching awareness and outreach programme has successfully promoted the conservation of the Yellow-eared parrot and the Wax palm at both the local and the national scale. One of the threats that the parrot faces is the annual Easter procession during which catholic tradition leads to massive cutting of Wax palms to provide palm fronds. In 2002, a nation-wide campaign gathered enough support to prevent this from happening in the community, however a great amount of effort awaits the field team to promote this change both into the future and to other communities within the Yellow-eared parrot area of occurrence.
Financial support: US$136,344 + €169,000