Faunagua
Founded in 2004, Faunagua is a Bolivian institution dedicated to promoting and strengthening different stakeholders’ capacities to sustainably manage and conserve renewable natural resources, with special emphasis on hydrobiological, wetland, and forest resources. Its activities are focused on collaborative civil society water management, including applied and participatory research, technological innovation, and development of adaptation strategies that consider environmental variability and climate change. Its work is oriented to the amelioration of food security and sovereignty, local livelihood enhancement, gender equity, and poverty alleviation.
Through its partnership with Acción Andina, Faunagua will scale their project in the Cochabamba landscape by increasing tree production capacity in the Tunari Park through construction of a new nursery. The annual production goal of 100,000 high Andean native trees will be coordinated with communities and landowners, and further Faunagua’s mission of increasing local stakeholder capacities to conserve and restore natural resources critical for ensuring future livelihoods throughout the region.
Restoration Leaders
Rosmery Ayala Lozada
Rosmery is a biologist by formation, having obtained her degree from the Universidad Mayor de San Simón in Bolivia, and has a Masters degree from the VLIR University in Belgium. She has worked as a researcher in the high Andean wetlands topic, and since 2004, she became a founding member of the Fanagua Association Board of Directors, where she developed and coordinated projects on the management and conservation of human and hydrobiological resources, as well as wetlands and ecological restoration in Bolivia. She has led projects on the management and governance of water resources as well as having experience in academic training and project coordination in other natural resource areas throughout Bolivia.
Paul A. Van Damme
Paul is a researcher with a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Since 1995, he has been coordinator of the VLIR– UMSS (Cochabamba – Bolivia) Inter-institutional cooperation and since 2004, he has been a founding member of the Faunagua Association, serving as Executive Director. His main field of specialization is the study and management of hydrobiological resources and emblematic species of Bolivia, especially Bolivian native and migratory fish and the Bolivian dolphin, species highly threatened by the degradation and disturbance of their habitats. He has extensive experience in the conservation of protected areas and ecological restoration in Bolivia and South America.