BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — On the outskirts of Colombia’s capital red macaws share a nature reserve with ocelots and black-headed parrots. A white-crested harpy eagle whistles at schoolchildren who walk on a well-preserved trail.
The animals come from different regions of this ecologically diverse South American country. But most of them share one thing in common: They were rescued from animal traffickers.
As leaders in the fight against wildlife trafficking gather in London this week at the Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference, conservationists around the world are working to provide shelters to the thousands of animals that have been rescued from smugglers.
The Bio Parque La Reserva in the Colombian city of Cota is home to 50 species ranging from turtles to golden poison frogs, which are sought by collectors for their rare color.
Ivan Lozano, the reserve’s director, said his organization helps formerly trafficked animals recover from their injuries and reintroduces some of them into the wild. But it also uses animals that can no longer live in their original habitats to teach visitors about different species and their role in the ecosystem.
“Our idea here is to change the behavior of younger generations toward these animals” Lozano said.
To achieve this goal the Bioparque reserve opens its doors to hundreds of tourists and schoolchildren each week, for a fee of $6. Only guided visits led by the park’s experts are allowed.
While Colombia lacks well-known species like rhinos or elephants that make world animal-trafficking headlines, the country is strongly affected by the trafficking of exotic snakes, parrots, frogs and three-toed sloths.
More than 23,000 animals were confiscated in Colombia from traffickers last year, and smuggling is a serious threat to species like the golden poison frog.
Lozano believes that education is one of the keys to reducing animal trafficking and that is why he has opened his reserve to visitors.
“We want people to realize that they too have a role in reducing the loss of our biodiversity” he said. “And we want to make scientific discourse more accessible.”
Tesoros de Colombia Sustainable Farm supports 73 farmer families from the Casabianca municipality in Colombia who harvest quality grain and, at the same time, develop responsible practices within the habitat of the dotted poison frog (Andinobates dorisswansonae), a species of amphibian that only lives in this sector of the planet (endemic). The Active Conservation Alliance is joining forces with Tesoros de Colombia to support this unique project.
It is unusual for agriculture and wildlife conservation to complement each other. Because it is frequently heard that many crop owners, in their eagerness to develop, cause intense deforestation or destroy the habitat of many species. In short, the conservation of biodiversity and productivity do not always advance in the midst of an ideal integration.
Tolima / Colombia
However, in the rural area of the municipality of Casabianca, in Tolima, there is an attempt to transform that premise and partially change history. In a community crusade that strives daily to maintain its impact, and that is being supported by Tesoros de Colombia (a frog conservation project and farm), farmers from this municipality are growing high- quality coffee, while taking care of the habitat of a unique species in the world, known as the spotted poison dart frog, seen only in this part of the planet (endemic) and standing out among the vegetation for its shiny, black skin, spotted with red, yellow, or orange dots.
They avoid burning, among other good practices
Coffee crops could represent everything that a frog like the dotted frog would reject to keep the leaf litter intact, forests with a good presence of bromeliads or water sources, some of the sites that form its main home and where it deposits and cares for its young tadpoles. For this reason, the farmers, grouped within the Agromejora Association, are committed to consolidating the grain harvests, but as long as they adopt some responsible practices that respect the environment of the Andinobates dorisswansonae, the scientific name of the amphibian.
Mountains on the banks of the rio cauca, beautiful and fertile land for agriculture
Óscar Buriticá, legal representative of the Agromejora Association, says that grain crops are grown from natural fertilizers, without using too much water and with drying process that does not use tools that could be polluting due to the use of fuels. “We are focused on avoiding chemical spraying; We don’t burn either. And we respect the shores of the ravines or the places where the frog is”, he explains.
The Association was born in 2015 in the village of La Mejora, with no more than 15 founding families. Today, it is made up of 73 families that live in 26 of the 29 rural areas of Casabianca, including La Esperanza, the one that contributes the most members. All of them, together, produce at least one load of grain each month which is equivalent to approximately 250 pounds of parchment coffee, ready to be ground. A small part of the product is for domestic consumption, because most of it is sold under the Café Endémico brand, a name that honors the exclusive presence of the Dotted frog in the territory. Generally, it is packed in bags of 300 and 500 grams, either in seeds or in powder (soluble).
Buriticá says that the Association has always been willing to improve its processes, in order to increase the quality of the product, which was recently presented in Montenegro (Quindío), during a specialty coffee fair —the first experience of its kind for the brand. — and in which Café Endémico stood out for its aroma and softness. «However, and despite the fact that it has been very well received, we know that we can consolidate it as a high-altitude coffee (it is grown at an altitude of 1,800 meters), exclusive and unique in the country,» says Buriticá.
And it has been in this step by step to improve the profile of the grain and its production, in which Tesoros de Colombia has joined the community to contribute to that objective.
A few months ago, for example, an agronomist, hired by Tesoros de Colombia, advised coffee growers on improving some processes. And in turn, the firm supported, at the same time, the redesign of the labels and bags in which the coffee is sold, so that they would be more graphically attractive. The product has also been taken, by representatives of Tesoros de Colombia, to cities like New York and Chicago, in the United States, in order to promote it and talk about the environmental experience accumulated in its manufacture.
Iván Lozano, manager of Tesoros de Colombia, explained that the company has a very clear objective and that is to help producers achieve the necessary registrations in Colombia and the United States to export coffee, and to continue accompanying the community in strengthening your business model. Today, Café Endémico is sold in Casabianca. Also, in the facilities of La Reserva Biopark, located in Cota (Cundinamarca). Likewise, it is usually taken to the city of Ibagué by order.
A community allied with conservation
This last part of the story could be defined as a win-win. Because, while the people of Casabianca have improved many details of their venture and have pledged to respect their agricultural frontier, halting its expansion —this as a condition for receiving the support that has emerged from Tesoros— at the same time, Tesoros de Colombia has been able to consolidate, also with the help of the community, its work focused on biocommerce and aimed at protecting the dotted frog.
This is necessary because the species is under pressure and in a Vulnerable state due to the loss of its forests, according to the Red Book of Amphibians of Colombia. Another problem that harms the stability of their populations is not only their reduced distribution—which increases their vulnerability—, but also the illegal trafficking of many of their individuals, who have been hunted to take them abroad and sell them illegally among collectors, aquarists or zoos. And, precisely, what Tesoros de Colombia seeks, with its presence in the region, is to stop this potential traffic. «This is how we have achieved it with other species, work with which we have defended, in turn, national sovereignty and its biodiversity, against the piracy that traditionally consumes our resources,» says Iván Lozano.
For this, the process of consolidating the reproduction in captivity of the frog is advancing, in order to, in the short term, export its offspring legally to Europe, among other continents. This is one of the many modalities of biocommerce (commercialization of goods and services derived from biodiversity), a set of activities endorsed by the Political Constitution of Colombia and regulated by the National Association of Environmental Licenses (ANLA).
The idea of Tesoros — work that it is currently carrying out in other regions of the country — is to legally export individuals of the species born in its laboratory, so that their demand can be met. In this way, those who begin to buy it legally will stop tolerating irregular and uncontrolled captures in the Tolima forests.
Restocking to support the species survival
For the moment, and for this specific case in Tolima, the attempt has already completed a first phase of collection some parental stock, which was followed up by the Casabianca community —a few frogs were captured to begin their reproduction. Also, a second phase has been completed, called ‘management of specimens under professional and expert care’. And it is expected that, in 2023, the commercial phase can be authorized by ANLA, which allows these copies to be sold in other countries and begin to stop their illegal demand.
As compensation for having been able to carry out the work, Tesoros de Colombia will lead a program to release and repopulate the species in its natural environment, to return to the habitat not only those few individuals that were initially captured, but also an additional and permanent quantity that will help consolidate a healthy population of the Andinobates dorisswansonae.
Two objectives are reinforced here: illegal trafficking is stopped through legal biocommerce and communities are supported with company resources, to actively involve them in the conservation of their environment and their threatened species.
“We are very satisfied with the work we have done, in which our productivity has been combined with the scientific effort of Tesoros de Colombia, which may allow, in time, the long-term preservation of this frog that is so valuable to our environment» added Buriticá.
He recognizes that, in what has to do with his productive activity, it is necessary to perfect some details, so that the coffee harvest can consolidate. One of these challenges is summarized in the importance of obtaining certifications that promote the commercialization of the Endemic Coffee, which would, in turn, allow obtaining resources to improve the sustainability of the landscape. This is perhaps an effort in which everyone’s desires are focused, including those of that very particular, dotted, poisonous and multicolored frog.
This project has been selected by the Active Conservation Alliance to be supported as it meets all the requirements directed to preserve an entire ecosystem and endangered species while engaging local communities in an active conservation program.
Mountain Full of Trees and Plants with Lots of Vegetation Around
Large numbers of brightly coloured poison dart frogs are smuggled around the world, but can a project that is hand-rearing the endangered amphibians help to save them?
I It looked like an ordinary piece of luggage filled with clothes. Then police inspectors at Bogóta’s El Dorado International Airport noticed something strange at the bottom of the bag – security X-rays revealed a curious dark cluster amid the clothes.
The mysterious clump turned out to be hundreds of black photographic film canisters. But when officials opened the canisters, they were found not to contain any film.
Packed inside were 424 critically-endangered frogs, each with a black market value of up to $2,000 (£1,479). Some had electric yellow and black stripes, others were milky green with splodges of neon orange, a few lay lifeless; all were highly poisonous.
According to police, the species had been poached from the Chocó and Valle del Cauca regions of the Colombian Pacific and were on their way to Germany.
But this incident on 13 April 2019 was merely part of an ongoing problem with wildlife smuggling in Colombia, which has around 850 species of amphibians and the world’s second highest diversity of frogs.
Breeding poison dart frogs in captivity can be difficult and laborious but experts at Tesoros de Colombia hope it can replace the illegal pet trade (Credit: Tesoros de Colombia)
Collectors in Europe and the United States are particularly drawn to poison dart frogs, one of the most toxic animals on the planet. Each can produce enough poison to kill 10 people, but their lurid, technicolour skin that is supposed to warn off predators also makes them highly prized. Nearly 200 amphibian species in Colombia, the vast majority of which are frogs, are classified as endangered or critically endangered in 2020, according researchers at the Humboldt Institute in Germany.
But one pioneering project is attempting to help Colombia’s endangered wild frogs with an unusual approach – legal breeding. Initially founded in 2005, Tesoros de Colombia is the country’s first and only commercial breeding operation, offering legitimate, captive-bred specimens at lower prices than those snatched by traffickers from Colombia’s jungles.
“To save a species you have to apply practical solutions to the threats,” says founder Iván Lozano, a self-funded frog enthusiast who studied at the UK’s Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and later worked at the Bogotá Wildlife Rescue Centre. “I learned that over time.”
Due to lengthy bureaucratic procedures, it wasn’t until November 2011 that Tesoros was granted a permit to legally export one native species, the yellow-striped poison frog (Dendrobates truncatus). By 2015, it gained permits for several others such as the green and black poison frog (D. auratus), the Kokoe poison frog (Phyllobates aurotaenia), and the famed golden poison frog (P. terribilis). Now, Lozano breeds seven species of poisonous frogs, delivering them mostly to the United States and Europe but also Asia.
The most sought-after is Colombia’s Oophaga frog, a so-called “obligate egg-feeder”, whose tadpoles must be fed individual unfertilised eggs by hand, replicating the behaviour of mother frogs in the wild. “It is extremely labour-intensive, but these are also the most threatened and desired species,” explains Lozano.
The demand for those species that are difficult to breed in captivity is very high – Sandra Flechas
His efforts to replace illegally captured frogs have made him famous among American collectors, who – in part thanks to Lozano – are increasingly seeking legally-traded, eco-friendly animals. Production of these Oophaga specimens by Tesoros has risen from 30 to 150 a year, but supply is still unable to meet demand.
Robert Zahradnik, a 37-year-old collector based in Colorado, believes legal breeding has forced many collectors to change their mindsets. “There is now peer pressure to buy sustainable frogs,” he says. “Any posting of questionable frogs on social media is met with resistance [by the community] in the form of comments calling out the origins. Meanwhile, sustainable frogs from Tesoros are considered something to be proud of.”
Parts of the conservation community, however, have been hesitant to fully endorse projects that seek to protect endangered animals through captive breeding. In the murky case of tiger farms across Asia, instead lowering prices and reducing demand for illegally collected animals, they spurred demand for both captive-bred and wild-caught animals. But in the case of Tesoros, the data appears to confirm Zahradnik’s claims.
A significant proportion – and in some cases 100% – of important frog species imported to the US between 2014 and 2017 were legally-bred, according to a recent study. While those figures are limited, due to uncertainty over smuggling figures, the author believes it is a strong case for legally-bred wildlife. “This isn’t the #MeToo of plants and animals, but there are serious issues that need to be discussed,” says Justin Yeager, who wrote the report. “Biocommerce isn’t perfect. You need regular buyers to stay financially sustainable, and that demands a ‘collector’ mentality. However, it’s an opportunity to change the culture of consumption.”
The stigma associated with illegally traded poison dart frogs means many collectors actively seek out captive bred animals (Credit: Anton Sorokin/Alamy)
But Sandra Flechas, who works for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Amphibian Specialist Group in Colombia, says that although legal breeding has proved to be an “efficient mechanism” for reducing the illegal traffic, the output isn’t yet enough. “The demand for those species that are difficult to breed in captivity is very high and there are not enough centres that reach those levels of production,” she says.
According to a study published in 2019, 80,000 Lehmann’s poison frogs have been poached in the past four decades. The IUCN lists the species as “critically endangered” with the population decreasing. “The problem is still very, very serious,” says Pablo Palacios Rodriguez, one of the authors of the report and a herpetologist at the University of the Andes, Colombia. “The socio-economic problems of the region mean traffickers can pay locals to help them. We need to offer communities alternatives through ecotourism and conservation programs.”
Yet the main challenge faced by Tesoros is financial viability. The operation faces fees for laboratory space, permits, lawyers, inspections, and government lobbying. Lozano says he racked up $500,000 (£381,236) debt in the process of being granted permits, and only began paying himself a salary in 2018. But Tesoros expects to break even in 2022.
We believe that we can save some of these species from extinction – Iván Lozano
By proving that it is possible to make a profit from legal trade, Lozano hopes to deal the $7-23bn illegal global wildlife trade a bodyblow. For now, based in a modest farmhouse in the state of Cudinamarca surrounded by 5.5 hectares of misty rainforest, the team of eight at Tesoros continue to carefully breed frogs in their bid to end the trafficking of Colombian wildlife.
As Lozano is talking, a thick styrofoam package is being prepared for a 72-hour trip to Japan by assistants wearing blue gloves. Dozens of luminous frogs, each accompanied by a serial number, are placed into plastic pots with damp moss, fresh plant clippings as well as smoothed air holes and a heating pad to reduce sudden changes in temperature during the journey.
“We believe that we can save some of these species from extinction,” says Lozano. “One frog at a time.”
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CUNDINAMARCA, Colombia — In a small farmhouse surrounded by cloud forest, Iván Lozano inspects dozens of glass containers that hold some of the world’s most coveted frogs.
The conservationist has been fighting the illegal trade in rare tropical frogs for years, risking his life and his checkbook to save the brightly colored, poisonous amphibians whose population in the wild is dwindling.
But Lozano doesn’t hunt down poachers and smugglers. He’s trying to undermine them by breeding exotic frogs legally and selling them at lower prices than specimens plucked by traffickers from Colombia’s jungles. His frog-breeding center Tesoros de Colombia, which translates to Treasures of Colombia, is among a handful of conservation programs around the world that are trying to curtail the trafficking of wild animals by providing enthusiasts with a more eco-friendly alternative: specimens bred in captivity.
“We can’t control the fact that in some countries it is legal to own these animals,” Lozano said. “But we want to make sure that collectors buy animals that are raised in captivity and are legally exported.”
Zoo-technologists Alejandra Curubo, left, and Ivan Ramos pack frogs for export to the US at the “Tesoros de Colombia” frog breeding center in Cundinamarca, Colombia.AP
Lozano’s efforts to replace illegally captured poison dart frogs have made him well known among collectors in the United States, who are increasingly seeking legally traded specimens.
“Before there was no way you could get a histrionica legally,” said Julio Rodríguez, an experienced New York City collector, referring to the Harlequin Poison Frog by its scientific name. “If you saw one in a collection, it most likely came from the black market.”
Rodríguez said that since Tesoros de Colombia began exporting frogs to the United States six years ago prices for some coveted species have dropped significantly. The price tag on the Harlequin Frog dropped by 50 percent, he said. The Golden Dart Frog, another much-sought species, went from around $150 a few years ago to $30.
“We want prices to go down so much that it’s no longer profitable for traffickers to sell these frogs,” Lozano explained.
He said his company also helps collectors breed their own frogs, so they can flood the market with legally raised specimens, taking the pressure off those living in the wild. The frogs raised in captivity by Lozano are no longer poisonous because they have a different diet than wild specimens. But collectors still seek them for their brilliant color patterns.
“We make ourselves sustainable by moving on to new species,” said Lozano, who already has permits to export seven species, including the Red Lehmani, a frog so rare collectors refer to it as “the Holy Grail.” Lozano is currently seeking permission from Colombia’s government to export another 13 species that are under pressure from animal traffickers.
A Phyllobates bicolor.AP
But while some breeding efforts have helped to tackle the illegal trade, others have had unintended consequences.
Indonesia allows the export of 3 million captive-bred Tokay Geckos to global pet markets each year. But weak regulation has given corrupt companies the opportunity to sell off wild Geckos as Geckos bred in captivity, said Chris Shepherd a conservationist who worked in South East Asia for two decades with TRAFFIC, an environmental group.
Laura Tensen, a zoologist at the University of Johannesburg, said in South Africa, private game reserves that breed lions for hunting have created a new market for lion bones. South Africa now exports lion skeletons to Asia, where they are used for traditional medicine and this has given poachers in remote regions an additional incentive to go after wild lions.
“For some species captive breeding might help” to reduce trafficking, Tensen said. “But one market does not always replace the other.”
In a 2016 study, Tensen concluded that captive breeding programs are more likely to work when animals bred in captivity are just as desirable to customers as those taken from the wild. These programs are also more successful with species that are relatively cheap to breed and in countries where authorities are arresting traffickers.
“In countries where the risks of being caught are low, the prices for wild caught animals are always less than those of captive bred animals,” Shepherd said.
Lozano assigns ID numbers to his frogs, to make it harder for traffickers to sell wild frogs as frogs bred in captivity. But he has struggled to keep prices low because of the costs associated with securing export permits from the Colombian government.
AP
It took Lozano three years to secure his first export permit, exasperating two business partners, who eventually gave up on the venture. Lozano continued on his own and acquired a debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the breeding center afloat.
He has also battled online critics who have tried to undermine his business by spreading rumors on social media that he is illegally exporting frogs. Lozano believes the criticism comes from animal traffickers.
“For our own safety, we try not to disclose details of our location,” he said.
Lozano now wants to start a program to repopulate some forests with frogs bred in his lab.
Colombia is home to 734 frog species, more than any other country except Brazil. The Humboldt Institute, an environmental research group, says at least 160 amphibian species in Colombia are critically endangered.
“This is an urgent situation,” Lozano said. “If we don’t persist some frogs could become extinct.”
