Animal chosen as World Cup mascot targeted by conservation plan
As the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil began, the Chico Mendes Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity rolled out the National Action Plan (“PAN”), aimed at the preservation of the Brazilian three-banded armadillo, known in Portuguese as tatu-bola, the animal chosen as the mascot of the World Cup this year.
Plans of this sort are management tools for facilitating the exchange of experiences among organizations in an attempt to provide guidance for top-priority actions on behalf of the conservation of biodiversity. Also referred to as PAN Tatu-bola, the initiative was officially announced on May 22, the International Day for Biological Diversity.
PAN Tatu-bola has a twofold objective: to reduce the extinction risk of Tolypeutes tricinctus – as this armadillo is named in the scientific community – and to assess the state of conservation of Tolypeutes matacus, the southern three-banded armadillo.
The three-banded armadillo has been included in a group of 11 armadillo species in Brazil, and is related to the anteater and the sloth. The main threats to the existence of these species are poaching and habitat loss caused by agriculture, intensified over the last years.
This armadillo derives its name from the three bands it has, which enable it to protect itself against predators by rolling into a ball.
The T. tricinctus, an exclusively Brazilian species, lives in the caatinga and the cerrado (described by the IUCN as "dry thorn scrub of north-eastern Brazil," and "bush savanna in central Brazil," respectively) and has been included in the Official List of Endangered Species of Brazilian Fauna, and also features on the Red List of Threatened Species, drawn by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The institute’s goal is to reduce the extinction risk of the T. tricinctus in five years, the duration of the plan, raising the species to “vulnerable” level or above.
The T. matacus inhabits the Pantanal (the Brazilian wetlands) and nearby cerrado areas, but this armadillo is more common in Bolivia, Argentina and Paraguay. The plan is expected to improve studies on the armadillo, since it is also classified among animals about which there are “insufficient data”, due to the lack of information about its range in Brazil.
In order to meet this goal, the Group for Strategic Counseling was created along with 38 actions, split into six specific objectives: to update the areas where the three-banded armadillo occurs and evaluate its main threats; to raise awareness in local communities and society at large about the protection of this species; to promote the knowledge on Biology and Ecology for the implementation of conservation strategies; broaden, intensify and integrate monitoring policies in an effort to halt the poaching of the armadillo; to reduce habitat loss in the next five years and connect isolated populations.
Today, the Chico Mendes institute has 44 plans in progress all over the country for the preservation of threatened species. Altogether, 362 species are covered, from such diverse biomes as the caatinga, the cerrado, the Amazon, the Pampas and the Pantanal.
Translated by Fabrício Ferreira
Fonte: Animal chosen as World Cup mascot targeted by conservation plan
