The Chacoan guanaco – a llama-like member of the camel family – is virtually unstudied in both Bolivia and Paraguay, and is highly threatened by poaching and mismanagement of its Chaco savanna habitat.  In Bolivia the guanaco is extinct in the highlands, where it used to be common.  The country’s last remaining population is now restricted to relict grasslands in the Gran Chaco, mainly on private cattle ranches and the Isoseño-Guarani indigenous territory, bordering Bolivia’s Kaa-Iya National Park.

Our Bolivian DPhil student, Erika Cuellar, is studying the behavioural ecology of the Chacoan guanaco in and around Kaa-Iya National Park, and establishing appropriate range management practices for the species’ ongoing survival.  Erika is very well placed to undertake this work.  She has an outstanding academic and professional record, with over a decade of field experience and training.  Notably, she took a leading role in research and capacity building during establishment of Bolivia’s Kaa-Iya National Park in 1995, and continues her involvement in ongoing research, conservation, monitoring and training activities.

The problem and its implications

Previous research has shown that 90 percent of the native Chacoan grasslands have been invaded by woody plant species in the past thirty years, causing a structural and qualitative transformation of the native vegetation – from open grassland to closed scrubland.  The main cause for this transformation is rangeland mismanagement through overgrazing by cattle and fire suppression.  It is this factor that has lead to the loss of suitable guanaco habitat, and hence underlies the recent decline in guanaco numbers over the same period.  As a large wild ungulate, that evolved in open savanna, the guanaco is a species that relies on grassland habitats for foraging, dispersal and reproduction.

Guanacos mainly exist in unprotected private ranch lands, hence a compromise between cattle ranching and guanaco conservation is needed.  To ensure the species’ future, therefore, as well as the unique and internationally important Gran Chaco grasslands, a number of major constraints must be overcome, which form the foci of this project:

• The continuous loss of suitable grassland habitat, required to support guanaco ecological requirements;
• The over-intensive use of remaining grassland patches by domestic ungulates – especially cattle – leading to potential competition with guanaco for scarce resources;
• The isolation of the last remaining guanaco population in Bolivia from that in Paraguay.  This constitutes a constraint to gene flow and so threatens the survival of the species in both countries

The project

Over the past three years we have developed a baseline conservation project for the Chacoan guanaco involving local communities from the Isoseño-Guarani territory.  This involvement has been achieved primarily by recruiting young community members and providing them with intensive training in standard field research techniques.  These parabiologists – as they are termed – have become crucial to the project.  Their permanent presence in the area, combined with frequent visits to ranches has already increased local authorities’ and residents’ sensitivity to the plight of guanaco.  Their support and involvement has also bought international recognition to the Kaa-Iya Project as a model in community wildlife management.  Erika aims to build on this by developing an initiative with the parabiologists and their communities to promote controlled tourism and, possibly, develop a guanaco shearing initiative for women who traditionally make artesanal woven products, currently made with sheep’s or synthetic wool.

To address the major constraints to the guanaco’s future, outlined above, Erika is:

• Investigating the direction and rate of change in the grasslands over the past decades, and determining the causes that are promoting this succession.  She is also studying how these grassland dynamics are affecting guanaco behaviour in terms of their ability to disperse, forage and breed.  In understanding of these interactions, she will be able to predict future interactions among grassland species assemblages and, hence, be able to implement effective land management interventions.

• Experimenting with different approaches to grassland management, such as controlled burning, in order to identify practical means of restoring and then maintaining ideal guanaco habitat, which also accords with the requirements of cattle ranchers.

• Providing advice and technical support to Paraguayan counterparts, and ensuring that guanaco are included in Paraguay’s conservation agenda.  The species’ range in both countries is very limited, but it is hoped that connecting the populations, by linking them via a biological corridor, will enable them to interbreed and expand their overall range.

Project outcomes

One of the most important features of community is change and by understanding how disturbed landscapes renew themselves we can predict how human-disturbed landscapes might respond (Krebs 2001)

Crucially, this project will enhance our overall understanding of grassland dynamics in relation to the ecological requirements of large herbivores.  Based on the outcomes, we will develop models and guidelines which will provide wildlife administrators with the tools to predict the pattern of loss in similar ecosystems, and so act to mitigate these losses.

We recognise that grasslands are important to local inhabitants.  By improving the management of grasslands and cattle ranching practices, we will help to avoid potential conflicts between different actors, such as, the private landowners and indigenous communities neighbouring the National Park.

The experience of formalising the concept of parabiologists, as local community members empowered to assume responsibility for wildlife conservation, can be applied anywhere where long-term conservation actions are needed.  We will formulate guidelines to inform the establishment of similar initiatives elsewhere.  Furthermore, from the perspective of the parabiologists themselves, their involvement in the project strengthens their position in the region and enables the indigenous political organisation to take decisions that they are part of.

Finally, the process of strengthening the transnational conservation programme with Paraguay, will form the strongest strategic regional initiative for conserving the guanaco and its Chaco habitat.  This is the most significant factor for ensuring the survival of the guanaco in Bolivia and Paraguay, as well as conservation of the Chaco savanna generally.

Summary and funding

This three-four year project is key in addressing priority ecological research to underpin future conservation actions that will ensure the future of the Chacoan guanaco in Bolivia and Paraguay, establish appropriate range management practices for the species’ ongoing survival, and contribute significantly to the conservation of the internationally important Chaco biome.  To date we have funding of £60,500 against a total requirement of £79,410, leaving a shortfall of £18,910, which we now need to secure.

You can find out about the budget for this project by contacting us. See our contact details.

If you are interested in finding out more about the science involved in this project, we would be happy to send you further information.

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Principal funders
Wildlife Conservation Society

Main Partners