In the forest’s fecund gloom, José Muchavisoy leads the guardians of the territory as they scan the undergrowth for trails left by their target. Strangely splayed paw prints, dung among the leaf litter and mud wallows where the creature cooled off during the hottest hours of the day are hints it was recently here. If they’re lucky, they might hear its shrill whistle and catch a glimpse of the animal as it bolts through the trees, looking like a vestige of the ice age. “We know how to look for them and where to find them, because the elders taught us,” says Muchavisoy. “The forest is our university.” As members of the Indigenous Inga community of Musuiuiai, the guardians are tracking the lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris), a sacred species in their culture. According to the community, the psychoactive drink ayahuasca gave them divinations in the 1990s to move to this village, a high-priority region for tapir conservation, and today their spiritual beliefs are pushing them to protect the species. The tapir is now the focus of an Indigenous-led conservation project in the forests of Colombia’s Putumayo department, using camera traps to assess its presence and understand the environmental factors affecting it. Prehistoric-looking, with its sagging snout and mohawk-like mane, the lowland tapir is one of South America’s largest native mammals. It roams tropical lowland rainforests and savannas, from north-central Colombia to northern Argentina. A heavyweight herbivore, the tapir can feed on the leaves, shoots and fruit of more than 460…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The post Indigenous guardians embark on a sacred pact to protect the lowland tapir in Colombia first appeared on EnviroLink Network.