A giant leap

Every project needs a Lucero.

Mobilizing 180 volunteer colleagues in the region, she knows everyone’s name, and remembers to ask how mothers are doing, and whether children studying away in Buenos Aires are enjoying their studies.

Her unofficial duties include dancing with locals, playing Chamamé (a local folk music genre), and always bringing yerba mate to share. Sharing her cup with an easy smile, kids readily sit on her lap, and women erupt in laughter.

Most importantly, Lucero remembers the little details, like knowing where the photo of the jaguar's footprint in the mud was taken 3 months ago on a remote farm, or the text message she received from the farmer who first spotted some signs of the animal.

A friend of the people, a friend of the jaguar

Lucero Corrales works on the team of Proyecto Yaguerete, a joint initiative from the CeIBA NGO and the National Research Council of Argentina, focused on the conservation of jaguars, the species with which they coexist and their habitats in northern Argentina.

Since 2019, with support from the GEF Small Gants Programme, implemented by UNDP, Proyecto Yaguerete has been working to strengthen community and inter-institutional work to ensure the coexistence of people and big cats in the Paranaense Forest and the Gran Chaco Argentino.

This work seeks to conserve the jaguar in both regions, trying to promote productive models that favor coexistence with the big cats. This includes improving the economy for rural inhabitants and ensuring the sustainability of their livelihoods.

Lucero is the coordinator of the Proyecto Yaguerete Collaborator Group, a program that hosts ranchers and farmers who live among the jaguars, and enhances the technical expertise of local residents. She equips them with the resources and training needed to monitor the jaguars. 

She has an intimate knowledge of the communities and an instinctive intuition about ranchers’ perceptions, sharing their culture and values.

Huge cultural shift

On paper, Chaco Province might seem to be a difficult proving ground for jaguar reintroduction.

The territory has the country’s highest level of poverty, and is primarily known as a hub for dairy, beef and cotton production, which can give rise to competition for habitat and conflicts with ranchers.

But in fact, the largely rural area has several attributes that render it especially suitable for jaguars: the 150 km² Chaco National Park harbours multiple ecological zones, and is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna.

Although the region has some protected areas with well-preserved forest areas, these are not sufficient alone to conserve jaguars. For this reason, the collaboration of rural residents living in the surrounding areas is critical.

One of the special advantages that this area has in the form of a fierce ally is Lucero and her team of collaborators.

Fittingly, Lucero’s name means ‘the one who leads us to the light’. Her luminous enthusiasm is a necessary tonic against a backdrop of decades of loss and destruction.

In Chaco Province, the jaguar’s range is also Lucero’s range.

Portions of the area were thought of as impenetrable by laypersons, but Lucero successfully traverses 6 million hectares of territory, covering the full range of jaguar distribution in the Chaco region, including the province of Chaco, Formosa and sometimes even extending into Santiago del Estero and Salta.

Forgotten people

In rural portions of Chaco Province, there are no public roads, which makes Lucero’s job difficult, but jaguar life easier.

To travel to key portions of the jaguar’s range can require journeys of as many as 200km; with the region’s rough terrain, this can sometimes mean 8-9 hours of transit.

As difficult as it is to traverse, it is important to have a continuous ranger presence in the area.

In the last two years, Lucero has coordinated 18 campaigns to raise awareness of the importance of this key umbrella species, and underscore the need for widespread community cooperation.

Active collaboration

Dr. Agustín Paviolo, Yaguarete Project Coordinator notes:

To become a colleague and friend, Lucero talks with locals about nature and wildlife conflict, and invites people to become active collaborators.

Once locals are on board, she hands out informational kits and trains them to collect and catalogue evidence of jaguar presence. Collaboration includes work to install cameras, collect scat, and take pictures of footprints.

Changing impressions

After multiple visits, locals begin to understand.

Frequently, local farmers mistakenly believe that the presence of jaguars signifies a problem rather than a resource.

But upon seeing a fuller picture of the wildlife in their province and the interrelationships between a healthy ecosystem and successful agriculture, acrimony becomes alacrity, and calumny becomes cooperation.

Most importantly, these collaborators start thinking of conservation as a priority.

Lucero’s camera traps are a particularly useful tool in changing perceptions. Farmers are shocked to see the profusion of wildlife present in their territories:: anteaters, puma, armadillos, and of course jaguars.

As an umbrella species, jaguars are crucial in both conservation and community engagement.

It has taken a long time building trust in the region, and it has required continuous reinforcement of positive activities, but thanks to the presence of workers like Lucero, a movement is building.

They’re not alone

Proyecto Yaguerete works at multiple levels – with individual community members, civil society organizations, and local institutions to conserve the species.

These allies include the National and provincial Governments, the National Park Administration, Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina, Fundacion Rewilding Argentina, Panthera, and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), among others.

Dedicated allies

For Lucero and the entire Proyecto Yaguerete team, their work has been bolstered by a network of strong allies across Argentina.

Participants initially came together out of the bitter awareness of all that has been lost, all that is being lost, and all that could be lost without action. But these participants are also fiercely committed to being part of the solution, and are willing to entertain what had previously been thought of as a radical notion: rewilding. 

Reintroducing the species in the province began in 2012, with the help and support of the government of Corrientes and national environmental authorities, through a program co-created by Fundación Rewilding Argentina (FRA) and Tompkins Conservation.

In 2015 the Jaguar Reintroduction Centre (CRY is its Spanish-language acronym) began to operate on the island of San Alonso, in the heart of the Iberá Wetland. Its objective is to generate jaguars — both those born there as well as wild transplants from other regions.

When ready, these jaguars are released in Iberá with the goal of forming a healthy population so that it can regain its role as the top predator in this ecosystem.

Radical relationship

Just as rewilding in Argentina requires all hands on deck and a radical rethinking of the role and importance of nature, the UN Biodiversity COP15 serves as an opportunity to take these giant leaps to reconfigure our relationship with nature.

The post-2020 biodiversity framework slated for adoption in Montreal at COP15 provides a strategic vision and a global roadmap for the conservation, protection, restoration and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems for the next decade.

Key species, like the jaguar, the largest feline of the Americas, play a fundamental role in the structure and functioning of ecosystems.

Their return restores health and integrity, essential components that help mitigate the global loss of biodiversity and climate change.

Turning rhetoric into action

COP15 will provide both the context and level of ambition for action to transform our relationship with nature.

COP15 is our moment to turn rhetoric into action.

30 years of action

For the past thirty years, SGP has been providing financial and technical support to civil society and community-based organizations on innovative community-driven initiatives that address global environmental issues while improving local livelihoods.

This year marks the programme’s 30th anniversary: since its inception in 1992, SGP has delivered over US$720 million to >27,000 community-based projects, changing countless lives in 136 countries.

Since 2006, the Small Grants Program has supported more than 257 projects in Argentina.

For more information on SGP-supported projects in Argentina, visit the SGP Argentina Country Page and dedicated SGP Argentina website.

For more information on the GEF SGP Big Cats Innovation Programme, please visit here.

Visit the SGP website for details on the Small Grants Programme.