Páramo El Tambor is an isolated mountain massif in the Venezuelan Andes facing the Maracaibo Lake

From the final report: ” Páramo El Tambor is an isolated mountain massif part of the Venezuelan Andes facing the Maracaibo Lake with unique environmental, wildlife and scenic characteristics. A notorious feature is the persistent cloudiness year around. Also, El Tambor is a complex socio-ecological system as farming and cattle ranching are traditional activities. Although partially under protection, the current Venezuelan crisis led to abandon institutional conservation actions. Therefore, deforestation and improper land managing practices are on the rise. These factors are driving degradation and habitat loss, altering the water cycle, which linked to climate change, pollutants, and pests, could drive many species to extinction. The project`s goal is working with stakeholders for implementing simple but impacting conservation and management actions (e.g. cattle exclusion, passive and active restoration with native species) and moving them to create conservation networks that will act as multipliers of successful practices. At the same time, through educational activities we look that communities recognize the crucial need of ensuring ecosystems function and species conservation, as well as the presence of an amazing biodiversity in the area.

We carried out the programmed activities, including the workshops, field-visits to the university forest, meetings with small groups, visit to families and interviews with community leaders. Informative and participatory activities included information on climate definitions, processes, and climatic features of the area. We introduced the concepts of climate change, and climate change adaptation having the opportunity of learning about the general knowledge and perceptions of participants about these issues. With respect to restoration, we focused in plant species identification (common names), and explanation of growing habits of native trees, seedling collection, and planting practices in the nursery (substrate mix preparation, planting seedlings in bags).

Stakeholders showed willingness to work in restoration activities at their farms, mainly from families who have children in the schools. According to factors such as community interest in recovering identified critical areas, accessibility, time availability, and capabilities to participate in collaborative works, we identified community people to develop work in critical areas for 2018-2020. We also discussed on threats and opportunities to implement a coordinated restoration plan. Major threads include deforestation and poorly planned and executed productive activities which cause unnecessary damage to the habitats. The final planned workshop suffered successive deferments due to increased difficulty to bringing people together on particular dates because of the deepening of the Venezuelan crisis. We opted to meet with small groups of people, but keep waiting for an opportunity to do a large meeting in the near future.

Deforesting for agriculture and cattle is the strongest threat in the area. In consolidated farms, the roaming of cattle within the remaining forest causes their degradation and eventual loss due to damage to plant regeneration and soil compaction. The last large deforestation was registered in 2016 (Maporal de La Osa and El Urumal), but surrounding communities and environmental organizations stopped this process at least for now. Eventual illegal logging is an always present threat. However, the felling of trees of a specific group of native species for fuelwood is an emerging threat given that the inhabitants lost access to natural gas which was the traditional way of cooking and making fuel needing activities.

Together with participants from schools, community and university students we worked in establishing demonstrative trials on passive and active restoration. Active restoration consisted in establishing a mixed plantation trial with 19 native tree species in a 1000 m2 tract of degraded land (379 plants). The process included work from plant identification and selection according to species site requirements, building of temporal nurseries for plant production, caring of plantlets for ensuring their survival and growth in the nursery, site preparation, planting, and initial care (survival over 85% despite the dry season lasted until April).

In relation with the passive restoration, in one of the selected areas we found a water spring. In this place, we agreed with the community and owner to spare approximately 1.5 hectares including areas with various levels of degradation and recovery. We completed an inventory of the woody component with the help of university students and field guides.

We elaborated a preliminary thematic map identified potential critical areas for disaster risk, deforestation hotspots, and areas for recovering using the map layers, and in-field checking with help of the communities. As for information dissemination and search for new funding sources: we have compiled an extensive amount of pictures and films on the various project activities. We will be including the material in web pages, reports, YouTube, and Instagram (@proyectotambor).

The inclusion of climate change and risk assessment approaches proved to be very effective to call more attention of stakeholders in environmental and habitat conservation matters. In addition to our current educative activities in habitat restoration, climate change, and risk assessment, we see the need of more educative work on promoting the knowledge and conservation of wildlife, especially those identified as endangered.

With this project, we have gained great insights on the next steps needed to coordinate and implement an effective restoration plan for the area. Although support of the communities is granted for continuing with the project; at this stage, financial support from international NGOs and other funding agencies will be needed to consolidate and expand it. We will continue looking actively for financial aid by applying to funding agencies. Unfortunately, no financial aid from the national/local government and universities is expected in the short-medium term due to the Venezuelan crisis. If the economic crisis is overcome, it is expected that in the midterm these environmental conservation activities will be seen as an integral part of the productive processes in the area and will be taken as an investment to maintain and increase productivity and ensure their quality of life.”