In the Orinoco River Basin spanning Venezuela and Colombia, biodiversity and agriculture are at odds. Cattle ranching is one of the leading causes of deforestation in Colombia’s Orinoquía and the wider Amazon, degrading habitat for wildlife in the region. Meanwhile, cattle wandering into nearby swampy forested areas are prone to fatal injuries and can spread disease to other animals. In Colombia, a team of researchers teamed up with cattle ranchers in the department of Meta to find a solution to one central question: How can cattle, a crucial part of local food security and livelihoods, coexist with tropical wildlife? To find out, the collaboration conducted a study in the Rey Zamuro—Matarredonda private nature reserve, where they installed fences around the confines of small-scale cattle ranches and tracked forest mammals such as lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris), spotted paca (Cuniculus paca), black agouti (Dasyprocta fuliginosa), and South American coati (Nasua nasua). They found that a simple two-wire wooden fence was enough to keep cattle away from grazing the forest understory that wildlife depends on. Meanwhile, smaller species could pass through ranches as needed — a win for habitat connectivity. The study was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. 14 km (8.7 mi) of wildlife-permeable fencing was installed to protect forest patches from cattle, which often graze on vegetation that wildlife such as tapirs and peccaries use as food. The fencing allowed for smaller mammals to pass through. Image courtesy of Juliana Vélez. “We need to think about changes in management to…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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