http://www.concentric.net/~moxos
The e-mail of the Prefectura del Beni is:- prefbeni@sauce.ben.entnelnet.bo
Dear Harold:
Hola a todos acabo de revisar su página y me parece verdaderamente desastroza Uds. no pueden hablar así de todo un País (BOLIVIA), no han tomado en cuenta la cultura de la región del Beni-Bolivia.
Para hacer una denuncia de esta magnitud tienen que tomar en cuenta todos los elementos que puedan incluirse, no solo es dañar la imagen de todo un páis.
Yo vivo en Trinidad y les voy a explicar lo que SIGNIFICAN TODOS LAS FOTOS QUE HAN PUESTO EN SU PAGINA WEB: EN MI CIUDAD EXISTE UNA FIESTA RELIGIOSA LLAMADA LA SANTISIMA TRINIDAD en la cual todo la persona se ponen los plumajes de los loros pero eso es parte de nuestra cultura y nadie absolutamente nadie nos puede decir lo que debemos hacer.
Sinceramente espero que ésta página la saquen de INTERNET!!
Chau!!
Having reviewed your page it appears a real disaster. You can't talk of a whole country (BOLIVIA) without having taken into account the culture of the Beni-Boliva region.
Before making a denouncement of this magnitude you should take into account all the elements that could be included, .....???? not only giving an image of a whole country.
I live in Trinidad and I will explain the SIGNIFICANCE OF ALL THE PHOTOS YOU HAVE POSTED ON YOUR WEB PAGE: THERE IS A RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL IN MY CITY CALLED SANTISIMA TRINIDAD in which everyone wears parrot feathers. This is part of our culture and absolutely no one can tell us what we can do.
I sincerely hope this page will be removed from the internet.
Chau!!
There is only one thing that I wanted to point out. Bolivia, as you might know, is a country with a lot of different indigenous groups, living there since hundreds of years. During this time they evolved different cultures, living close to nature obviously almost always related to it. Dances in the lowlands (especially in the Beni) are often performed using animal skins (jaguar, puma etc.) as well as macaw feathers etc., do you really think you have the right to critize indigenous cultures?? I hope you do not. If you want to critize then critize the turists that go there and buy macaw products, they are the ones opening the market.
By the way CITES does not in any sense rule the traffic within a country, it only does between countries. The use of animal products in Bolivia therefore has nothing to do with CITES, only the export and the turists taking them out of the country, the latter always ilegal. The sale of wild animal products in Bolivia though is ilegal (Veda General Indefinida (VGI), 22641, 1990). Only recently some new projects, under special permits are allowed tu use animals and plants as economic resources, macaws are not included in none of them, so far. The VGI though does allow all bolivians to use wildlife on a subsistance base or for cultural use.
I think everybody working in conservation and ecology does a great job trying to protect habitats and species, but this is by far not a justification to title indigenous people as sub-humans, this dear Susan wakes some deep fears in my conscience, because this sounds like neocolonialism, or even worse. Or am I just because of my German origin more critic about calling people sub-human??????????????????
many greatings
Dear Harold,
Dear ******,
I cannot check whose web page this was, anyway to use a term as sub-human is definitively not adecuate.
(1) Many of the so called "indigneous cultures" have drifted far from their origins. For example I cannot see what the performances in San Ignacio de Moxos has to do with the Roman Catholic church. Are these people Christians or pagans? I think they would claim to be Christians. Why then do they persist in a pagan dance? as far as I could see in Bolivia (and elsewhere) the indignies and campesinos would prefer to come to the cities, abandon their way of living and adopt a "Western" lifestyle. If they want to do that it's fine with me, who can blame them for wanting to escape the desperate poverty on the farms in Bolivia? However if they want to adopt Western culture with the benifits of technology, medcine and education then they should realise that the past must be put behind them and they must look forward.
This is a very western way of thinking! Why should they just adopt everything that offers western culture, throwing all their customs away? Do we throw all our cultures away only for the sake of tecnology? I do not think so.
You can check a lot of cultures in latin america, most of them have been christianized (they did not beg for that) in a way that was more threat than anything else. Often this was a psychological threat, telling the tribes obvious lies about how they lives would end if they do not change to christianity. So a lot of them changed to be Christians, never forgetting their old customs. (See people at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala for example). I do not see a conflict in accepting medcine and education and still having old costums, please as well think about who brought most of the fatal diseases to the "new world", some examples??
(2)These wild animals are not killed with bow and arrows or with blowpipes but with modern weapons. How is this "indigneous culture?" The hunters are there purely for the money and are not the same people as perform theses dances. I have met some of them too.
I see no conflict if indigenous people kill the animals with modern weapons, this does not change the culture. I agree that people that only kill the animals for pure money should be prosecuted, as Bolivian law foresee.
(3)I did see, and have photographs of people of Spanish descent wearing macaw feather headresses in processions. This is indigneouus culture? I saw these headdresses in hotel lobbies and as ornaments in private houses. More culture?
Do you recognize that even people of Spanish descent may be indigenous in Bolivia? If they wear these headresses in processions this is their right. Headdresses in hotellobbies to me are mostly are turist created problem, and private households might be in houses of people with indigenous roots.
(4)You have a priceless asset in Bolivia which is being squandered. When you have killed all these animals and birds what then of your cuture? I suppose it will have to end then if not now. I see no reason why dyed feathers from domestic birds could not be used, or some sort of artificial substitute.
Do you have any idea of macaw populations in Bolivia??? Definitively artificial substitute would hav their costs as well would not be accepted of the people. Do you have an idea of how many macaws die every day in latin america because of habitat loss??
(5)All these animals and birds are on the same little world as us humans. My belief is that they have an equal right to their share of "Lebensbraum".
"Lebensraum", this is a very religous way of thinking. So please think of all the moscitos as well as the domestic animals and so on.............All of them have the same rights, dont they?? Think about this next time you kill the moscito that is sucking blood of your equally righted body.
(6)I know of various reports that have been submitted to the Bolivian Government concerning the disappearance of fauna and habitat. They seem to ignore them all.
Bolivia by the way has much more national parks than other south american countries, due to some government regulation. Several of the big parks recently have been enlarged to sizes adecuate for viable populations (e.g. Noel Kempff National Park, Chaco-National Park).
More than 15% of the surface are under protection, what else do you want, and by the way most of the parks are functioning fine, having park guards, stations etc.
(7) I had the opportunity to visit the Santa Cruz zoo. I think you should go there and consider if these are fit conditions to keep animals? If there is no money for anything better, it should be closed, there is no benifit for the animals. However I think someone there is making big money, the cost to get in was high and there were lots of visitors. (I have not been to La Paz, I assume you work in a Zoo there?)
Did I ever tell anything else?? The Zoo in SC is not a very nice place, but there are ideas to change this and try to keep the animals in better conditions.By the way I work for National Parks and doing my PhD in Bolivia. I though was working for various institutions, one of my consultancies was about "Ilegal wildlife (+products) sale", and believe me all the points you are worried about were less concerning than most of the other I have seen. (Save the Zoo in SC).
Finally I would like to say that my wife and myself enjoyed our visit to Bolivia. We met lots of really nice people. We also met people who had the same views and concerns as myself. Most were afraid to speak out and asked me to reveal these things on my website so that the world should know. I have had hundreds of emails from all over the world. The information I have shown on MY website is factual, if as a Bolivian you feel ashamed you should act now to correct the matter. I can put you in touch with other people in Bolivia.
There are always people that share the same ideas as oneself, unfortunately most people being concerned about topics like this do not think about all the facts and think being for two months in the country make them learn all the problems and put them into a place to decide what is going wrong in the country. Obviously there are several problems concerning wildlife in Bolivia, I agree on that, but be careful not to mix up things and as well see the positive aspects.
Whilst I am in contact with you, I have heard that there is a plan to flood large areas of the Aldo Madidi National Park to generate hydro electric power. Is this correct? I had intended to visit this park, it is supposed to be one of the best in Bolivia together with Noel Kempff.
There is a world bank project and it would flood large areas of Madidi and Pilon Lajas National Park. Their is a big opposition and nothing has been decided so far, most probably this project will not be executed. If you need more information I for sure may send you them.
I live here in Bolivia with my family, and the disrespect for nature and animals leaves me in a constant state of nausea. In the city where I live, Santa Cruz, there is a place, an outdoor sort of market, where all they sell are animals- most of whom are sick and terribly undernourished. They sell chickens, ducks, puppies, cats, among others, and parrots.
Since the selling of parrots is "illegal" They try to hide the parrots as best the can- in small cardboard boxes, or in potato sacks hanging from hooks. If these unfortunate animals were to get confiscated by the police, the officers usually keep them as pets or sell them themselves.
It is a disgusting place where the animals are in horrible conditions and, every time I have gone, without food and water. I have seen several baby macaws, and purchased two to try and give them good homes, and they were in terrible conditions. Terrified and with empty crops, and one I bought even had slow crop. Thankfully, the two babies I bought did grow up beautifully. I know I shoudn't have supported those monsters in any way, but I couldn't bear it.
I don't know if you visited Santa Cruz, but if you have any more info let me know. I haven't seen very much information on how parrots are treated in their native habitats, but it's like this over much of Central and South America.
And Finally From the Bolivian Embassy in Rome, the only official response so far.
Rome 2 March 2000
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