Abstract
Deforestation in the neotropics contributes to the decrease of many species of parrots and macaws. Nest and food trees of these species are cut down; birds are shot as pests by farmers; and others are robbed from nests made accessible by new roads. At the same time, there is an everincreasing desire for cage birds. Many countries with parrot populations have laws that regulate such trade but often lack the personnel or basic knowledge to enforce them. Treaties such as CITES are designed to control international trade, but often are impotent against "re-exportation;' the smuggling of birds into a country with weak laws or "flexible" officials and subsequent exportation with legal permits. In response, conservationists in the "developed" world, concerned about the destruction of rain forest and its resources, are enacting laws that restrict the caged-bird trade in their own countries. For example, in New York state, it is illegal to sell any wild-caught birds.
Enthusiasts of cage birds have been understandably upset, as the supply of captive-reared birds is low compared to demand. Given the large amounts of money potentially involved, especially if prices increase per bird, and the miserable salaries of the few wildlife enforcement officers in Latin America, illegal smuggling could continue the exploitation of parrots at levels similar to the previous legal trade.
Ironically, at heart, conservationists and aviculturists have the same long-term goal, both want parrots and the ecosystems that support them to survive. Instead of fighting, I suggest that aviculturists could make a major contribution to the conservation of rain forest and that, in return, conservationists should press for progressive laws that encourage rational and sustained exploitation of parrots, instead of punitive laws that may lead only to even greater damage than they were designed to prevent.
The Vicious Circle
Rain forest at present is the enemy,both to countries with large populations seeking land, and to the peasant who is allotted his small patch of uncleared forest. Most trees are worth little as lumber, assuming there is a lumber company interested in exploiting them in the first place. The peasant cuts the trees and then burns the debris. The ashes are nutrientrich so, for a year or two, small crops can be grown. Within a few years, the soil is exhausted and cannot support further crops. If the settler is lucky, he can perhaps sell his land for cattle grazing. He moves on to another plot or stays and works for the rancher. If he is unlucky, he ends up in a city, another unemployed inhabitant of the squatter camps that increasingly ring most Latin American cities, providing the misery that supports guerrilla groups and unrest in many countries.
Meanwhile, frequent fires are set each year in the farmers' abandoned plots to encourage grass for cattle. The fires nibble at the surrounding forest, further reducing its area. If the area is hilly and the range overstocked, cattle soon cut bare-earth paths in the grass and erosion begins. If the area is a watershed for a city, the lack of a forest leads to quicker rain runoff and less retention of water. Streams become seasonal, either bone-dry or bursting their banks in devastating floods. They also become silty and rapidly fill dams. Water becomes scarcer in the cities. The plot's former owner finds his family without water.
Wildlife also suffers. The big cats, harpy eagles, tapirs and peccaries are among the first to go, as they require large amounts of forest. Increased hunting by settlers soon clears out the monkeys and the large rodents such as agouti and paca. Nests of macaws and other valuable cage birds are located and robbed, cutting down the nesting trees that cannot be climbed. Sometimes the nestlings survive, sometimes they do not. The damage is the same to the bird populations. A few furtive or small species persist, like squirrels, opposums, bats, and armadillos, but the animal life is only a pale remnant of what occurred before.
Meanwhile, the government, alarmed at the swelling numbers in its cities, looks for further lands to colonize, and the cycle repeats itself.
Eventually, of course, the cycle will stop. There will be no more forest to clear, or even the most optimistic official will realize that what remains is too steep or too sterile for farming. The damage will have been done. At a wider scale, rain forest is an important absorber of carbon dioxide. Deforestation may aggravate the "greenhouse effect;' leading to drought and rising sea levels as the earth's climate warms up in response to increasing levels of carbon dioxide.
Breaking the Circle
What if we could break this cycle before it runs its course, by making rain forest more valuable alive than cut? A growing effort is being made to find natural rain forest products that can feed people and provide them with at least a small cash income. These include iguanas, large lizards with a chicken-like taste, that are culinary delicacies in much of Central America; Brazil nuts that can be gathered from rain forest trees, and medicine that can be gathered from rain forest shrubs and trees. Still other products are being researched, or recovered from the folk knowledge of the original inhabitants. For example, the Brosimum tree has an edible sap and fruits that formed a staple of preEuropean Mayan life. The species could be used the same way today.
Other efforts involve the restocking of wildlife, such as pacas and agoutis, which could range free on small wood lots and be harvested on a sustained basis. Again, the original inhabitants had taboos that prevented over-exploitation. Today, scientists must recover enough knowledge of the species to reinvent harvesting rules.
Parrot ranching? What if parrots could be harvested on a sustained basis? They would provide a formidable cash incentive to maintain rain forest. At first this seems impractical. To harvest a population, we need to know the size of the population; how many are being born, and how many die. In theory, we could take much of the production without causing the population to decrease. In reality, parrot populations are very difficult to count. Parrots fly great distances each day. The observer is usually stuck on the ground with the parrots 40 or 50 meters up in the crown of a tree. Even the brightest macaws and parrots are difficult to see, as they sit quietly feeding. The only noise may be the squawking of arriving and departing birds, or the thud of heavy fruits crashing to earth after being discarded by a feeding bird. Counting the parrot population for a whole country would be just about impossible.
Another approach would be to allow exploitation of pest species, as countries such as Costa Rica do. Unfortunately, it isn't always clear what a pest is. A species may even be endangered but be a local pest, as is Amazona ocbro cepb ala in Costa Rica.