We work to inspire people and bring about a positive shift in attitudes towards the Yellow-shouldered Amazon parrot, known locally on Bonaire as the lora. We also share our admiration of the island’s dry forest environment, which the parrots call home, and, by doing so, build community support for conservation.
Our achievement towards these goals include:
- Establishing Parrot Tours led by local tour guides and generating revenue for conservation. This genuine eco-tourism realises the economic value of the parrots through sustainable activity. We hope this initiative will also financially benefit the local community.
- Creating the Klup di Lora (Parrot Club), an after-school program that engages local youth through educational games and other activities. Echo provides each club member with a special series of activity books as well as materials for group play, including board games, arts and crafts materials, and parrot cut-outs.
- Regularly hosting school groups at the Dos Pos Conservation Centre and the parrot rehabilitation facility.
- Working with local church groups and Bonaire’s Junior Rangers to teach students about the importance of the parrots and trees through fun, educational activities.
- Talking to representatives from the local crop-growing community about parrot-human conflict and employing various methods to reduce this conflict, such as the use of trained falcons to scare parrots from farmers’ fields, providing alternative feeding tables near farms, and using large scale nets to cover crops.
- Reducing the social acceptability of the poaching of wild parrots for the local and international pet trade by educating people about the vulnerable status of their local parrots.