Rocio Palacios
General Coordinator
Andean Cat Alliance - Alianza Gato Andino
rociopalacios@gmail.com
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She considers herself a crazy cat lady, and celebrates it with pride. Her first presentation at a conservation congress was at the of 12 in her hometown, in Córdoba, Argentina. After that, she participated in different NGOs and studied biology at the National University of Córdoba where she also completed her PhD thesis. Rocío fell in love with the magic of the desert, developing a deep conviction to protect these frail environments. She worked for Wildlife Conservation Society and the Argentine National Parks Agency, always as a member of the Andean Cat Alliance. Rocío was awarded the Disney Conservation Hero prize for her work with park rangers and Andean cats in northern Patagonia. She has been coordinating the Andean Cat Alliance since 2014 and thanks to an amazing team, was key in making the Alliance have a more active role in the conservation arena.
Scaling-up: finding creative ways to build up community-based conservation programs for Andean cat conservation
Scaling-up: finding creative ways to build up community-based conservation programs for Andean cat conservation
The Andean Cat Alliance community- based programs aim to reduce threats for the conservation of the species by finding tools that allow communities to live in harmony with their natural surroundings. For this, we actively work with the communities using a participatory approach in which together we identify possible interventions that are feasible in a realistic time frame, positive for the community and local wildlife, and flexible to adapt and grow. This sensitive approach has been very successful, as proven by their fast expansion to new communities.As the general background of the Andean Cat Alliance members comes from the natural sciences, we lack key knowledge about market approaches that could allow us to take these programs to the next level. Our two biggest challenges are to find proper ways to scale up the existing conservation programs taking into consideration market-based tools, and to measure the relationship between community development and conservation.
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