Church protects parrots and palms

20-08-2002

Just days before Palm Sunday, the Catholic Church in western Colombia elected to support alternatives to cutting down wax palms for adorning traditional processions. Instead, Fundación ProAves – Colombia distributed more than 2,500 balloons, 2,000 tree branches (from coffee, eucalyptus and pines), and 500 palm fronds (from abundant lowland species) to churchgoers. Twice as many people as usual took part in the procession, none with wax palm fronds. 600 wax palm seedlings were presented to families to plant afterwards.

Wax Palms Ceroxylon quindiuense – an Endangered species – are cut down to adorn processions and churches throughout the Colombian Andes each Palm Sunday. The critically endangered Yellow-eared Parrot Ognorhynchus icterotis is entirely dependent on the wax palm for nesting and roosting. In 2001, a new population of Yellow-eared Parrots was discovered in western Colombia (now known to be 277 individuals, two-thirds of the world population), but their habitat was being rapidly decimated.

In response, ProAves (operating as Project Ognorhynchus) implemented an action plan with the support of Fundación Loro Parque. BirdLife's successful World Bird Festival 2001 helped ProAves to establish an intensive environmental awareness campaign, and an ecological group, "Friends of Nature" was founded and has grown rapidly. Simultaneously, ProAves and Conservation International launched a national and regional publicity campaign. Children in Friends of Nature distributed palm and parrot posters, and held musical concerts and theatre productions. Local police were educated, and the regional environmental agency, CorAntioquia, paid palm loggers to plant wax palm seedlings.

Although concern for the palm remains high – wax palms continue to be cut down in other parts of the Colombian Andes for processions – ProAves is now reasonably optimistic about the future of the palm and the parrot.