Brazil:
Water pipe project for the conservation of the Lear's Macaw

The illegal trade with parrots is booming - for the big disadvantage of the Lear's Macaw (Anodorhynchus leari; photos: Heinz Lambert) which is named after the famous ornithological drawer Edward Lear. In the Brazilian federal state Bahia where the Lear's Macaw lives exclusively still some individuals get caught by bird hunters for sale or shot by farmers who want to keep them away from their cornfields. For more than 10 years by now the species has been declared as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.

The Brazilian farmer Otavio de Farias took action for the protection of those beautiful parrots. On his farm, an area of about 20.000 hectare, he keeps about 150 cattle, 1000 sheep as well as some horses. Furthermore, and this is remarkable, his farm is a refuge for 240 of the about 600 existing Lear's Macaws.

On a part of the farmland no grazing animals are kept at all, so that a big population of Licuri Palm Trees (Syagrus coronata) can exist. The nuts of these palm trees are the main food source of the parrots. The farmer also cultivates maize to keep the parrots away from the neighbouring farms. But his work became more difficult in a region where hardly any rain falls and where there is always a lack of water. ZGAP wanted to solve this problem and financed with the support of two ZGAP members the construction of a water pump as well as the connection between pump and the already existing well via a complex pipe system to the maize fields.