In Ixiamas, an Amazonian town in Bolivia, community members are fighting to prevent jaguars from continuing to be victims of wildlife trafficking. Several jaguar deaths have been recorded between 2023 and 2024 but very little has been done to clarify the facts.Despite the increase in trafficking in jaguars and jaguar parts in Bolivia, there has been just one conviction, which was for the death of a jaguar in Santa Cruzand involved a Chinese citizen who was exporting fangs back to China.The Bolivian government has developed a jaguar conservation plan, which it plans to update next year. However, the project has not achieved the expected results.
See All Key Ideas
On one Saturday in August 2023, news of a jaguar (Panthera onca) death shook the small streets of the Amazonian town of Ixiamas in Bolivia. It was all community members were talking about, after having found the animal’s carcass on the side of a dirt road leading to the community of Santa Fe. The jaguar’s head was missing, leading to one hypothesis: that the jaguar had been killed for its fangs. A criminal case was opened, but ultimately nothing happened.
Ixiamas is located 866 kilometers (538 miles) from the city of La Paz, the entire municipality is Amazonian and 60% of its territory has been declared a protected area. At 3.7 million hectares (9.1 million acres), Ixiamas is the second-largest municipality in Bolivia, and is home to the Lower Madidi Municipal Conservation and Management Area (AMCM-BM by its Spanish acronym), which, together with Madidi National Park, is the largest jaguar habitat in the country, according to Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Bolivia.
In Ixiamas’ main square stands a statue of a jaguar bearing the message, “In this Amazonian municipality, we care for the jaguar.”
After Ixiamas’ community members found the dead jaguar in August 2023, they organized themselves and decided to protect the species. They launched campaigns and shared messages promoting the protection of jaguars, while children dressed up as jaguars and paraded through the town’s streets.
The jaguar watches over Ixiamas from the town’s main square. Ixiamas’ community members are working to conserve the species. Image by Iván Paredes.
“We found out a day later that they had discovered the body of a jaguar far away from the town [of Ixiamas]. They told us the body was headless. But what’s worse is that after a while, they made the body disappear. There are only photos now, which were handed over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate,” says Israel Fernández, who is part of the neighborhood committee that fights against wildlife trafficking in Ixiamas.
Everyone in town knows that the jaguar was found dead in the forest but no one knows exactly who killed it, though people have their suspicious. Fernández says foreigners come to the municipality to hunt jaguars. “It’s a criminal network. We know that they used to order via radio for jaguars to be killed and taken to San Borja or Trinidad [municipalities in the department of Beni so they could take their fangs and skin. Now they are more careful and don’t make it public, he says.
The unsolved case in Ixiamas
The community of Santa Fe, where the dead jaguar was found, is located 90 minutes from Ixiamas. It is a small town and one of the gateways to Madidi National Park. Community members prefer not to talk about this incident.
However, one of the park rangers working in the area knows about the case and agrees with Israel Fernández’s suspicions: “The case of the dead jaguar occurred outside of Madidi National Park, but it’s not the only case; there have been others. Before [the traffickers] put adverts on the radio to buy dead jaguars. The community members themselves then killed and sold them. Now they do it more carefully. Some people, when drunk, confess that they’ve killed jaguars and taken them to Beni. We’ve seen that these trafficking networks are now very careful and contact each other by Telegram — that’s what we’ve found out,” the park ranger explains to Mongabay Latam.
The park ranger, who asks not to be named to preserve his job, also says that a few months ago, in September, they found a dead young jaguar, which had come out of the forest into Santa Fe looking for food, as its mother had been killed. “They asked us to investigate what had happened. We took a cage to the site and saw that the jaguar was hanging in a tree. It was hanging –– they had tied it up so that it couldn’t escape,” says the park ranger, adding that they handed the body over to the authorities.
The entrance to the community of Santa Fe in the municipality of Ixiamas. The deaths of two jaguars in this area have never been solved. Image by Iván Paredes.
The animal’s mother had been killed by community members who had used the excuse that she had killed six pigs that were being reared for food. The body of the adult female jaguar was never handed over to the relevant authorities, but it appeared days later, far from the area, headless and skinless.
“The mother jaguar has cubs and settles near livestock fields because there is guaranteed food. A mother jaguar will not walk for miles, leaving her cubs alone. She prefers to stay there [in the livestock fields] to hunt calves, dogs, chickens, ducks or pigs. She will then leave the area when the cubs are independent,” the park ranger says.
Marcos Uzquiano, president of the Bolivian Association of Conservation Agents (ABOLAC by its Spanish acronym), considers jaguars to be family and has promised to protect them before it becomes too late to save the species. From his work, Uzquiano knows that this feline, which has the most powerful bite in the world, no longer lives in peace. International mafias “have their eye on jaguars” and look for them in the depths of the Bolivian forest to rip out their fangs after shooting them dead. Uzquiano says he believes there is a simple explanation: In Asian countries, jaguars are targeted as substitutes for the tiger (Panthera tigris, a species on the brink of extinction) and are trafficked to supply a consumer demand for their fangs.
For several years, Uzquiano has been receiving information that Chinese citizens are paying Bolivians for jaguar fangs. The park ranger and his team have been tracking this crime for years, determined to put a stop to it before more jaguars are killed, referring to them as his “brothers,” as he has grown up with an awareness of them in his territory in San Buenaventura, in the department of La Paz, in Madidi National Park, since his childhood.
In fact, in 2018, his investigation resulted in the seizure of 185 jaguar fangs, the largest seizure of jaguar parts in Bolivia. This was considered one of the greatest achievements in the country’s history of wildlife trafficking.
A jaguar in Madidi National Park in 2021. Image courtesy of SERNAP.
“I’ve never been attacked by a jaguar,” Uzquiano says, firmly intending to bust the myth that “tigers” attack people. Those who have attacked him –– and many times –– have been humans, whom he denounces for attacking nature or because, ostensibly as authorities, they do not take action.
“The only alternative is greater oversight, greater inter-institutional coordination between the different levels of government and also greater prevention by, and awareness among, communities. A direct strengthening of the work that park rangers do so that at least the jaguars that are within the protected area can really be protected, as they should be,” he emphasizes.
The figures are shocking. According to data from the General Directorate of Biodiversity, under the Ministry of the Environment and Water, between 2014 and 2020, at least 760 jaguar fangs were seized in Bolivia in different operations from people who had bought or were trying to trade these parts, although there is no information on seizures per year.
What is worrying is that little is known about the institution in charge of holding the fangs and other jaguar parts, with some fangs having ended up in natural museums. The Bolivian authorities have no traceability to know the final whereabouts of the confiscated pieces.
From 2014 to 2020, the Bolivian Public Prosecutor’s Office initiated 36 prosecutions for the crimes of prohibited hunting and fishing, destruction or deterioration of state property and biocide. Of these, only one jaguar-related case was convicted: the seizure of fangs that Uzquiano made in 2018 involving two Chinese nationals who have already served their three- and four-year prison sentences. Of the remaining cases, six are currently open (one of which has been since 2015), 20 have been rejected and the rest have been dismissed due to a lack of evidence.
The municipality of Ixiamas is working on an awareness-raising plan to conserve the “tiger,” as the jaguar is called in several Amazonian villages in Bolivia. Image by Iván Paredes.
No justice
The impunity enjoyed by those who traffic jaguars and their parts is nothing new in Ixiamas, which is why its inhabitants are not entirely surprised that nothing happened with the case of the jaguar killed last year. Despite community members filing a complaint, the investigation did not move forward because there were no witnesses. The case was also taken to the municipality of Apolo, in the north of La Paz, where the investigation was dropped.
Mongabay Latam went to the Ixiamas Public Prosecutor’s Office, where staff rejected the notion that there is an open investigation process on jaguar trafficking. This information was reiterated by the police and the municipality’s agro-environmental court.
“Most of these types of wildlife trafficking complaints occur in rural areas, some of which are difficult to access. Without a suitable vehicle, it’s difficult to reach these areas to collect evidence. Sometimes the investigations are dismissed because there’s no way to get there, there’s no way to investigate due to a lack of logistics,” explains an Ixiamas police officer, who asks to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to give statements.
The mayor of Ixiamas, Félix Layme, assures that wildlife conservation policies are in place, especially in the Bajo Madidi Municipal Conservation and Management Area. Layme explains that agreements have been made with NGOs to enter Ixiamas and enable conservation plans for jaguars and other species living in the municipal protected area and Madidi National Park. However, jaguars are still being tortured.
“In our protected area, 63 species of mammals have been recorded, which is 16% of the total recorded for Bolivia. It’s also home to 20 endangered species, including the yellow-spotted river turtle [Podocnemis unifilis] and the red-footed turtle [Geochelone carbonaria], which are victims of wildlife trafficking due to the trade in their eggs. Other vulnerable species in the area include the jaguar, the Peruvian spider monkey [Ateles chamek], the otter [Lutrinae], the marsh deer [Blastocerus dichotomus], the giant anteater [Myrmecophaga tridactyla] and the tapir [Tapirus]. It’s therefore our mission to develop and continue implementing a care plan for the jaguar and other species,” Layme emphasizes.
Communities in Ixiamas say they have seen jaguars on some occasions, as they often come to drink water from the area’s rivers and small streams. Image by Iván Paredes.
The mayor gave a list of good intentions, but did not offer precise data or figures on trafficking in jaguars and their parts in his municipality.
According to the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the jaguar’s status is near threatened. In the case of Bolivia, the country’s Red Book of Wild Vertebrate of Bolivia categorizes it as vulnerable.
The most updated figures and data are included in the Jaguar Conservation Action Plan 2020–25, prepared by the Bolivian Ministry of the Environment and Water, which details that since 2014 there has been “poaching” of jaguars in the country in order to sell parts, such as fangs and skin, to the Asian market. However, this plan also includes data revealing that whole jaguar carcasses have been requested in order to make “jaguar paste,” which is used as an alternative to “tiger paste” for medicinal purposes in China and other Asian countries.
According to the conservation plan, “Thirty-five cases of jaguar trafficking have been verified (up to 2020), with a total of 723 fangs in addition to skulls and skins seized having come from Bolivia, representing the death of at least 200 jaguars. Of these 35 cases, 22 of them were directly linked to Asian markets, with 92% of the seized fangs destined for China.”
This same document reveals that several jaguar trafficking businesses exist, which are run through social networks. “An analysis of online traffic in Bolivia has revealed 27 additional instances of jaguar trade, mainly through social networks, specifically Facebook, from the lowlands of the country. This analysis puts Bolivia in third place for instances of online trade in jaguar parts in Latin America, ranking only after Mexico and Brazil. In addition to fangs, trade in claws, skulls, skins, bones, fat and whiskers have been recorded, possibly for ornamental purposes, as status symbols, or for medicinal and superstitious beliefs,” the document states.
The government plan also highlights that it is likely that the number of investigations and jaguars killed represent just a small fraction of their real number; given that jaguar trafficking is an illegal activity, it is difficult to obtain accurate figures for the jaguar trade. “Added to this is the low detection rate by control and law enforcement authorities,” details the document.
Jaguars are considered umbrella species. Image courtesy of Fundación Natura.
Daniela Justiniano, an environmental activist with the organization Alas Chiquitanas, is backing a “serious plan” to save the jaguar. “There’s a lot of impunity on this issue. Chinese [citizens] come to Bolivia to work for Chinese companies, and in those areas [where they work], there are reports of biocide, including the jaguar. Why aren’t there more drastic sanctions against those who kill jaguars? This should be reviewed in the legal framework,” she says.
The park ranger, who requested that their name be withheld, says they believe that offers of jaguar fangs through social networks and digital platforms have decreased because there is now more awareness among the population to protect jaguars and not because of state control. At the same time, the park ranger also questions the lack of a detailed official report on seizures of jaguar fangs and parts. On the other hand, several studies on wildlife trafficking mention that online tactics are becoming more cautious, which would also explain the decrease in trafficking cases detected through social networks.
Jaguar hunting has not stopped in Bolivia
In Bolivia, jaguars can be found in several lowland forest areas, from the Chaco Forest in the south of the country to the Amazon Rainforest in the north. However, in the last 50 years, the jaguar’s historical range has decreased by more than 30% due to habitat loss and fragmentation caused mainly by agricultural expansion, according to the Noel Kempff Mercado National Museum of History.
Ángela Núñez, a biologist at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, is a fierce defender of jaguars in Bolivia. She recalls that in 2011, there was not a strong demand for jaguar parts, but that in 2014, she had alarmingly started to identify the trafficking of fangs. Prior to this, only skins used to be trafficked, she notes.
“In 2014, cases of trafficking in jaguar parts had really started to significantly increase. In Bolivia, we connect this to the migration of Chinese citizens to our country, as they’re the ones who started to create this demand,” Núñez tells Mongabay Latam.
Several jaguar fangs and parts were seized in Santa Cruz in 2022. Image courtesy of El Deber.
According to Núñez, there are between 6,000 and 7,000 jaguars in Bolivia, most of which are concentrated within Madidi National Park. “There are studies that directly link the increase in trafficking in jaguar parts to the arrival of Chinese companies throughout Latin America. This problem is not just occurring in Bolivia but has been confirmed as an issue in Peru, Colombia, Panama, Suriname, Guyana, Mexico and Brazil too. Cases have also been identified in Argentina, despite the fact that the jaguar population is very low there,” Núñez says.
In May 2024, there was news of a jaguar that had been run over on the highway between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, specifically at kilometer 124, in the vicinity of Camp 3 of the Chinese company Sinohydro. The jaguar was later dismembered and skinned.
The report of the Forestry and Environmental Preservation Police (POFOMA) states that a Pakistani citizen, who worked for the Chinese company, “had knowledge” of the animal’s head “without its fangs.” Meanwhile, in a container, the skin was found “spread out on wooden boards, covered with salt,” with “three decomposing limbs covered with soil.”
Three people involved in the incident –– two Bolivians and one Pakistani –– were employees of Sinohydro, the company that is constructing the Cochabamba–Santa Cruz highway. The case was suspended.
POFOMA’s report states that three other Sinohydro employees –– a legal adviser, the head of human resources and an environmental specialist –– intervened so the parts were handed over to the police. The jaguar’s skin, head, three limbs and four fangs were recovered and handed over to the Departmental Secretariat of the Environment and Water Resources of Cochabamba.
Camera trap images of a mother with her approximately 6-month-old cub by the Tuichi River inside Madidi National Park in 2019. Image courtesy of G. Ayala and M. Viscarra/camera traps/WCS Bolivia.
According to Rodrigo Herrera, director of the Environmental Justice Legal Association, after the jaguar was run over, the employees involved should have immediately filed a report with the environmental prosecutor. The prosecutor would then have had to inform both the police and the relevant departmental and national authorities. “This is because [the jaguar] is a native wild species that is part of the Bolivian biodiversity. The species is also protected by national and international law,” Herrera says.
But this did not happen. Rather, the jaguar was transferred to a camp. According to the environmental website La Región, which accessed images, the employees of the Chinese company dismembered and skinned the jaguar, so a committee of representatives from POFOMA, the Biodiversity Management Program of the government of Cochabamba and park rangers from Carrasco National Park went to the site to investigate the situation. Sinohydro was not part of the legal process.
Law 70 for the Defense of Animals against Acts of Cruelty and Mistreatment, enacted in June 2015 by former President Evo Morales, establishes that biocide is punishable by a prison sentence of 2-5 years and a financial penalty of 30-180 days of work for anyone who “kills an animal with cruelty or futile motives.”
However, the law only considers it aggravated, with one-third of the maximum penalty applied, if “more than one animal” is killed, ignoring considerations such as the fact that the jaguar is a near threatened species.
Incidents similar to those of the jaguar that was run over and dismembered, the jaguar that was decapitated and the killed female and cub jaguars in Ixiamas are also taking place in many other regions in Bolivia.
The entrance to Madidi National Park shows information about jaguars. Image by Iván Paredes.
Amador López, a tourist agent in Rurrenabaque, recalls that between 2000 and 2010, jaguars could still be found in areas of this Amazonian town. “Our tour packages had that option. People could see jaguars in some areas; for example, they’d be lying on the beaches carefree, but now it’s very difficult to see them,” López says.
López also regretfully remembers what happened in 2016, when the Chinese citizen Liang Fiang Xiao paid for an advertisement on a radio in Rurrenabaque, offering $100 for jaguar fangs and another amount for a jaguar skull. In an undercover operation, one of Madidi’s park rangers, posing as an ordinary citizen, called Xiao and told him that he could get the jaguar parts for him. When the two met, the park ranger asked him to show him the exact type of fangs he wanted. This operation was coordinated with POFOMA and was carried out at the Chinese citizen’s house. There, seven parts were seized and he was arrested. It later came to light that he was released due to a lack of evidence.
Rurrenabaque was also in the news two years earlier, after having caught Yan Yixing with 300 jaguar fangs in December 2014. The man was arrested and later put under house arrest, but up until 2020, he was observed as being very active on the streets of Rurrenabaque, details López, who also comments that he became feared in the town, where he was known as “Jabín.” “Yan Yixing was notorious for his authority over some of his compatriots, and he went around showing off his money. He was not only involved in trafficking jaguar tusks and skins, he also had several other businesses, including a brothel. Then he disappeared like the wind,” López says.
Trafficking in jaguar parts is also commonplace in the city of Trinidad. In the market of the capital of the department of Beni it is not difficult to find a stall selling jaguar parts. According to online reports, one such stall combined handicrafts with wildlife trade, with other stalls displaying skulls of juvenile jaguars without any qualms. Each had their fangs intact.
In Trinidad, several operations have been carried out to put an end to these illegal sales, which even reach the city’s prison, where inmates have made handicrafts using jaguar fangs and skins as part of their daily activities. The Bolivian police stopped such activity in light of the public condemnation.
All this worries María Viscarra, a biologist who is part of the research team of WCS Bolivia and who, for more than 15 years, has traveled up and down the dense tropical forests of Bolivia and Peru, mainly the Greater Madidi–Tambopata Landscape, installing camera traps to study the big cat.
River Beni. Image by Iván Paredes.
Although some territories have seen a gradual recovery in jaguar numbers following an intense period of wildlife trafficking in the 1980s, the rapid increase in trafficking is once again a problem that Viscarra says she believes needs attention. The expert recognizes that there have been improvements with regards to sentencing, given that nobody was incarcerated for such crimes previously, “but the laws and regulations still need to be improved to punish people who commit crimes such as wildlife trafficking,” she says.
Viscarra also notes that sight must not be lost of the fact that trafficking in jaguar parts is just one of several threats the species is facing, such as fires, agricultural expansion and mining. Populations will decline as forests, such as the Greater Madidi–Tambopata Landscape, become more fragmented, reducing their connectivity, she adds.
This story was first published here in Spanish on Nov. 15, 2024.
Author :
Publish date : 2024-12-23 23:13:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
Author : theamericannews
Publish date : 2024-12-26 04:17:48
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.