Workshop: Conservação e uso de tracajás por comunidades tradicionais no Amapá

A busy few days. After months of planning, the workshop took place between 20 and 24 August 2018.

First day (20) presentation by Rafael Balestra to undergraduate students at the Environmental Sciences Department in the Federal University of Amapá. Rafael kept the students engaged for three hours discussing and debating conservation of reptiles and the role of ICMBio in Brazil, including the the work of RAN, the reptile and amphibian specialist team. This was then swiftly followed (day 21) by meetings at the Federal University of Amapá between the technical teams including ICMBio protected area managers, ICMBio turtle specialists and IBAMA .

Following these preparatory meetings, we all traveled to Porto Grande (day 22) to present to local schools. Finally we traveled by river to the ICMBio base at the FLONA do Amapá, where plans were made with the ICMBio managers and the local communities for protecting turtle nests during 2018/2019 (nesting season is from September with hatchlings expected from around December / January).

School and community meeting photos courtesy of Rafael Balestra and Scott Watson.

A real highlight was the participation of Lourdes Ruck and Eva Loja, both managers from the Peruvian protected area network (SERNAP). Both are river turtle specialists and are involved in the conservation and commercialization of turtles with local communities in Peru. They shared fantastic presentations of the work from Peru, which share many of the same challenges faced by managers here in Brazil.