Green Tours launches initiatives strengthening the link between wildlife tourism and habitat conservation, to preserve the incredibly diverse wildlife of Peru.

OAKHAM, RUTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM, October 29, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Peru birding tour company Green Tours has launched a series of projects aimed at strengthening the link between wildlife tourism and habitat conservation. As one of Peru’s main wildlife tour companies, with more than a decade’s experience of running specialist, eco-friendly tours, they are ideally placed to work with local people to preserve the incredibly diverse wildlife of this varied and beautiful country.

Green Tours was established in 2006 as a birding Peru and wildlife tour operator, and in 2018 the founders and employees created “Asociación Green Tours, a non-profit organisation committed to the well-being of both the wildlife and people of Peru who live in the places where the company runs its bird and wildlife tours.

Peru is widely considered one of the best birding hotspots on the planet. With more than 1800 different species, including a host of endemics found here and nowhere else, it attracts birders from all over the world. From the coastal area around Lima to the high tops of the Andes Mountains, and the Pacific coastal forests to Manu National Park – arguably the best place to watch birds on Earth – Peru offers an unforgettable wealth of experiences.

However, many of the most important habitats and the species that live here are under threat, which is why Green Tours has decided to commit its resources to helping preserve these unique places.

The new initiatives include a conservation project based in the dry forests along the Pacific coast of northwest Peru, led by Peruvian-British conservationist Jeremy Flanagan, which aims to save the Peruvian plantcutter – one of the country’s rarest endemic birds. Green Tours has been helping Jeremy since 2017, by producing mesquite tree seedlings which are then used to replant degraded areas of the forest.

In northeast Peru, near the little town of Aguas Verdes, Norbil Becerra and his family have created one of the most extraordinary small-scale conservation projects in the whole of South America. Having habituated some of Peru’s most elusive species, the forest-dwelling tinamous, he then put out hummingbird feeders, which now attract up to 20 different species. Birders flock to his property to watch and enjoy the avian spectacles from a specially-built viewing platform. Now Green Tours is helping Norbil to improve the quality of service he can offer to his many satisfied customers.

Another family-owned patch of forest, El Rejo Conservation Area, comprises about 30 hectares of humid montane forest above the Rio Marañon Valley, northeast of the capital Lima. A team from Green Tours visited the area in 2017 and discovered important populations of a rare species – Jelski’s tit-tyrant – as well as a very rare race of the rufous antpitta. Green Tours will now help the owners turn the property into a formal nature reserve.

Nearby, the Loma de las Perdices Conservation Area is a patch of former agricultural land being turned back to nature, near San Marcos in the Cajamarca department of northern Peru. Green Tours has discovered four endemic birds here: buff-bridled Inca-finch, black-throated woodpecker, Marañon gnatcatcher and white-rumped black-tyrant. The company is now helping to improve the access road and buy more land to enlarge the protected area to conserve these special birds.

All these initiatives show that wildlife tourism and conservation can – and indeed must – go hand-in-hand, in order to preserve the unique avifauna of Peru.

Chris Larsen
BluSky Marketing Limited
+44 7793 498834
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