For 3 days, more than 60 young people, children, adults, parents, biologists, architects, tourism professionals, sociologists and volunteers from many other professions, participated in the citizen science event that began as a welcome for spring in the region: The Home River Bioblitz (THRB).
This event, which we baptized in Spanish as "Biobúsqueda en el río", promotes drawing attention to the state of our rivers and their biodiversity.
This is the second consecutive year the event has been held and had more than 20 countries from all continents participating. In Peru, 4 local projects were organized, 3 in the rivers of the city of Lima, one in the Huatatas river, Ayacucho, and one in the Junin lake, Junin region. If you want to see the international project and the projects from Peru, you can follow these links:
The Lima projects were promoted under the name of "La Biobúsqueda en los 3 Ríos de Lima". These are the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers.
Lima is a city of more than 10 million inhabitants and more than 70% of the population depends on the waters of these rivers, especially the Rímac River, which is the main supplier of drinking water. The Chillón and Lurín rivers sustain important crops for the city's food and, in addition, are favorite recreation areas for the people of Lima.
In Lima, 5 guided BioBlitz activities were organized by the collaborating organizations. Three of these activities in the Rímac river were carried out by BioEdest and Naturalista Perú, the other two, one in the Lurín river and another in the Chillón river, were organized by the Red Guardianes de los Humedales. In Ayacucho, the Bioblitz in the Huatatas river was organized by the Asociación Pro Fauna Silvestre. These organizations also had the collaboration of another 6 collaborating organizations from Peru and abroad.
Prior to the BioBlitz days, a virtual launch of the event was organized, with the collaboration of the renowned tutor and curator of iNaturalist in Mexico, Carlos "aztekium" Velasco, who presented the history and objectives of the THRB initiative. The presentation was used to publicize the concern for the care of rivers, in particular, in the city of Lima, which attracted much attention from the general public.
Biosearch areas: Lurín river, La Punta, Surco channel, Rímac river, Chillón river and Huatatas river.
To date, 1167 observation records have been obtained for the country, with the identification of 257 species. However, these numbers are expected to increase because there are collaborators who have not yet uploaded their records and because there are numerous observations that require help in identification.
The results were satisfactory for all. Despite the fact that the sun was absent during the sessions and even more so, despite finding that some rivers are in poor environmental condition, the participants enjoyed sharing the experience of discovering that our rivers are full of biodiversity.
Photos of the teams: Lurín river in Lurín (The first two), La Punta in El Callo, Surco channel in San Borja, Rímac river in San Jerónimo de Surco and Chillón river (Lima), Huatatas river (Ayacucho).
The final results are expected to be announced at an event that will be broadcast on social networks. In the meantime, we are already preparing for The Great Southern Bioblitz 2022!
Here are some photos of observations recorded during this event:
Photos:
Organizers of The Home River Bioblitz 2022 in Peru:
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