Conservation Projects in South America Shadow

Brazil

Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

RSF funds assisted the Smithsonian Institution taking battery-operated televisions into the South American rain forest to show remote villages and rural populations a short film of the beauty of jaguars and other South American mega fauna. Due to habitat destruction millions of children and adults who inhabit this region never see these animals in the wild, and the film was part of a widely heralded project to educate the native people about their own natural resources. The film was shot using Inca, an adult male jaguar raised at the T.I.G.E.R.S. Preserve.
Jaguars from the Preserve were also used as key characters in the film Jaguar, Year of the Cat made by Nature for international broadcast. This program included the only film clips in the world of a mother jaguar and her cubs in a wild setting.
RSF is currently supporting a program that reimburses farmers for livestock lost to wild predators, including jaguars. This initiative ensures that the predators do not become a financial liability for the farmers and are therefore less likely to be illegally poached. The RSF rewards farmers in the program who set aside a minimum of twenty percent of their land to be kept in its natural wild state. This ensures a viable habitat for the jaguar and other indigenous wildlife such as tapirs, monkeys, toucans, sloths, caiman, and spectacled bears.


Chile

Small Wildcat Conservation Foundation

Small Wildcat Conservation Foundation

Founded in 1996, the Small Wildcat Conservation Foundation works to ensure the survival of small wild cats and their natural habitats worldwide. The Foundation works with local partners in such regions as the Andes, China, Sumatra, and Tibet to identify and mitigate threats to the world’s small wild cats such as the Javan fishing cat and the rarely seen desert-dwelling sand cat. These and other rare cats are listed as vulnerable and critically endangered on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. RSF supports IUCN efforts to protect the world’s smallest endangered cats.