Update on BioBrasil‰s Hyacinth Macaw conservation project in Piaui State, Brazil
By Richard Hartley

The reserve abounding with Hyacinth Macaws and maintained by BioBrasil Foundation in Piaui State, has been expanding thanks to generous support and collaboration with organizations committed to saving endangered habitat and the fauna contained within it. The Foundation now has 12,000 acres of land under its direct control and protection, in a region where animal populations, particularly those of much coveted macaws, have been under siege for years from hunters and traffickers. Wildlife is reappearing and is increasingly on hand for the growing influx of nature tourists, avid for up-close experiences with the marvellous creatures that inhabit the region.

Last year for the first time, BioBrasil managed to increase its array of fauna attractions. While still maintaining the unrivalled Hyacinth macaw spectacle, where up to 70 squawking birds eat and play for the ecotourists to observe from twenty feet away, visitors to the reserve now have the chance to see the magnificent maned wolf, capuchin monkeys cracking their nuts in a show of dexterity, howler monkeys peering down from centenarian mango trees and some of the other 220 bird species present in the reserve.

The accommodations have also been radically upgraded. The intrepid traveller would put up with sand floor of our palm thatched huts and the one bathroom that formerly served the whole camp. Now both of our lodges, which we call Hyacinth Valley and Hyacinth Cliffs, host cozy concrete cabins equipped with private bathrooms and warm showers. The view greeting the visitor to the latter camp, Hyacinth Cliffs, is breathtaking and in the middle of the daily route taken by hundreds of chatty and radiantly coloured sun conures.

The Foundations staff has been expanded to inculcate another former trapper into the team. He is the owner of 1000 acres of prime green-winged macaw (Ara chloroptera) habitat northwest of BioBrasil‰s reserve and is ensuring the trafficking of this macaw has been eliminated from his neck of the woods. Generous support from the Gabriel Foundation is responsible for the broadening of BioBrasil‰s fauna protection sphere of influence in this vulnerable and remote area. The members of BioBrasil‰s field team continue to impress guests to the reserve with their extensive wildlife knowledge and willingness to abandon the more lucrative profession of animal trapping and become their former commodity's foremost protector.

Other foundation work is ongoing with the highly endangered Lears Macaw (Anodorhynchus leari) and in the hugely diverse Atlantic Rainforest, which has shrunk to 5% of its original size. The Foundation has leased 50,000 acres of the Lears macaw habitat in the arid north-eastern region of Bahia state, the main reproduction site of this species which has been reduced to 200 or so wild individuals. Additionally, BioBrasil is developing an ecotourism strategy for 16,000 acre forest remnant three hours south of Salvador, Bahia, the city from where the Foundation operates.

BioBrasil thanks Tropical Nature, The World Parrot Trust, The Gabriel Foundation, The Minnesota Zoo, the Parrot Society of Los Angeles, CETREL S.A, Planta­Ýes Michelin da Bahia, and the Macaw Landing Foundation for their support and looks forward to future collaboration in saving threatened species and habitat.