Through the Save The Snakes Support Grant Program, Save The Snakes supported Christophe Pellet in 2019 to increase awareness about snakes in Cotopaxi province, La Maná canton, Ecuador. Christophe has worked with many snakes in Ecuador and hopes to use his knowledge of snakes to educate the local community about venomous snakes in Cotopaxi province.
Project Title:
Bosque Protegido Privado Jardin de los sueños (Protecting the Forest Garden of Dreams)
Project Summary and Aims and Objectives:
The aim of this project is raising awareness on the importance of snakes.
The objectives of the project include:
a) Creating an educational snake-theme trail, with professional pictures of the snake species in the region, creating informative sheets explaining the importance of snakes focusing on vulnerable and endemic species in focus area (e.g. Peters’ Running Snake, Despax’s Ground Snake or the Chocoan Bushmaster).
b) Printing and sharing posters with basic information on snakes, so that the local people know about snakes in and around their houses. Printing additional posters for the project itself, so that the interested people can learn about the snakes as well.
c) Personal interviews with members of the local communities regarding their relationship with snakes: how often do they meet one, which ones do they usually see, are they scared of them or not? There will be two rounds of interviews: one at the beginning of the project, the second after one year (supposedly people will be more aware and have more knowledge).
d) We have planned an event with an exposition space focused on snakes. It is in this workshop where people will receive the posters and be able to learn about snakes through a talk, posters and photographs. The interviews regarding local knowledge and feelings towards snakes will be explained there.
Goal:
The goal of the project is to reduce the number of people that fear snakes and reduce the number of snakes that are killed and the local people can get involved in helping the project’s goal to conserve snakes in the forest. The project hopes to increase the amount of posters presented, increase the number of people that attend the workshops and have successful interviews to show change in perceptions.
Support Snake Conservation
Christophe’s project is a recipient of the 2019 Save The Snakes Support Grant Program. Save The Snakes Support Grants are made possible because of the generosity of compassionate people and organizations who are inspired and dedicated to protect threatened snake populations and mitigate human-snake conflict around the world. Please donate today to help us continue to fund projects like Christophe’s snake conservation project in Ecuador. Thank you for your support.