The study is led by the Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasilia, and co-authored by more than 20 other organizations including the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

White-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) are pig-like hoofed mammals native to the tropical forests of Central and South America. They are extremely social, forming large herds of up to hundreds of animals. Peccary researchers from Mexico to the Amazon have been intrigued by the sudden disappearance of white-lipped peccary populations across large areas, as well as reports of previous disappearances and subsequent reappearance.

The study shows that over 20–30-year population cycles, the disappearances represent seven-to-twelve-year troughs when peccaries vanish. These can occur simultaneously at regional and perhaps continent-wide spatial scales as large as 10,000–5 million square kilometers (3,861-1.9 million square miles).

The study suggests that the mysterious disappearances may be triggered by populations growing too big, and crashes are likely facilitated by different causes, including disease outbreaks, and underscores the need for more long-term studies to better understand the causes.

The ground-breaking study, which relies on collaboration and detective work to document 43 different disappearances at 38 sites in nine countries, also incorporates 88 years of commercial and subsistence harvest data from the Amazon. It confirms that this poorly-known species which is so ecologically important to neotropical forests, as well as culturally and socio-economically crucial to the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who live in these forests, has large-scale and long-term population cycles.

From an ecological perspective, the white-lipped peccaryis considered a keystone species as they influence forest regeneration and plant populations, especially palms, through seed predation and foraging and turnover of leaf litter. They are also considered ecological engineers through their maintenance and expansion of forest mineral licks and wallows, which benefit many other wildlife species. In addition, they are the preferred prey of Latin Americas’ apex predator, the jaguar (Panthera onca). When peccaries disappear, jaguar populations decline.

White-lipped peccaries are immensely important from a socio-cultural perspective, as a preferred subsistence hunting target for Indigenous Peoples and riverine and rural communities across their range. This significance is reflected in the stories, oral history and art of many of Latin America’s Indigenous Peoples. Indeed, some Indigenous Peoples have stories which refer to the peccaries disappearing and reappearing.

The lead author of the study, Dr. Jose Fragoso from the Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasilia, Brasilia, DF, Brazil, the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA/MCTIC), Manaus, Brazil and the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California, said: “This analysis highlights the importance of very large, continuous natural areas that enable source-sink population dynamics and ensure re-colonization and local population persistence in time and space for perhaps the fundamental keystone species for neotropical forests. It also highlights how working with indigenous peoples can help resolve mysteries in biology.  Our work also resolves a key question in tropical ecology, what happens to white-lipped peccaries when they disappear.”

Senior author Dr. Mariana Altricher, from the Environmental Studies Department, Prescott College, Arizona, believes that “this work clarifies an enduring mystery in tropical forests. It will help guide future research and conservation efforts in the tropics. Most importantly we must continue to monitor peccary populations, especially in fragmented protected areas”.

Dr. Harald Beck, Co-Chair of the IUCN Peccary Specialist Group, and one of the authors of the study, said: “This unique publication has a large-scale focus (Central and South America), utilized historical and current data, and state of the art new modeling methods to answer critical ecological questions about the spatial-temporal population fluctuations of the dominant Neotropical mammal, the white-lipped peccary. The paper will guide future research in the Neotropics, as well as influence conservation efforts and policies.”

Dr. Rob Wallace, Senior Conservation Scientist at WCS and one of the co-authors of the study remarked: “WCS remains committed to landscape-scale conservation at a series of Nature’s Strongholds in Latin America, which is fundamental for wide-ranging species like the white-lipped peccary, especially considering these population cycles. Understanding these natural population cycles will be crucial for interpreting our population monitoring efforts, which represents the gold standard for evaluating our conservation impact, not just for white-lipped peccaries themselves as a keystone species and socio-cultural touchstone, but also the other wildlife with which they coexist – lowland tapir, collared peccaries, leaf litter biodiversity, a number of palm species, plant diversity, and, of course, the jaguar.”

Study authors were: Jose ? M. V. Fragoso^1,2,3*, Andre ? P. Antunes^2,4, Kirsten M. Silvius⁵, Pedro A.L. Constantino⁴, Galo Zapata-Rios⁶, Hani R. El Bizri^7,8, Richard E. Bodmer^9,10, Micaela Camino^11,12, Benoit de Thoisy¹³, Robert B. Wallace¹⁴, Thais Q. Morcatty^8,15, Pedro Mayor^16,17, Cecile Richard-Hansen¹⁸, Mathew T. Hallett^19,20,21, Rafael A. Reyna- Hurtado²², H. Harald Beck²³, Soledad de Bustos^24,25, Alexine Keuroghlian²⁶, Alessandra Nava²⁷, Olga L. Montenegro²⁸, Ennio Painkow Neto²⁹, Mariana Altrichter³⁰.

1 Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasilia, Brasilia, DF, Brazil

2 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA/MCTIC), Manaus, Brazil

3 California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California, USA

4 RedeFauna–Rede de Pesquisa em Diversidade, Conservaca?o e Uso da Fauna da Amazonia, Tefe ?, Amazonas, Brazil

5 Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA

6 Wildlife Conservation Society– Ecuador Program, Quito, Ecuador

7 Department of Natural Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

8 Instituto de Desenvolvimento Sustentavel Mamiraua ?, Tefe ?, Amazonas, Brazil

9 Museum of Amazonian Cultures-Fundamazonia, Iquitos, Loreto, Peru ?

10 DICE, School of Anthropology & Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

11 Proyecto Quimilero, Roosevelt 4344, CABA, Resistencia, Argentina

12 EDGE of Existence—Zoological Society of London, Regent’s Park, London, England, UK

13 Kwata NGO, Cayenne, French Guiana

14 Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, USA

15 Department of Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, United Kingdom

16 Departament de Sanitat i d’Anatomia Animals, Facultat de Veterina?ria, Universitat Auto?noma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain

17 Museo de Culturas Indigenas Amazonicas, Loreto, Iquitos, Peru

18 Office Francais de la Biodiversite ?-DRAS/SCGEEUMREcoFoG, Kourou, France

19 Department of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

20 Institute for the Environment & Sustainability, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA

21 Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia

22 El Colegio de la Frontera Sur -Unidad Campeche, Campeche, Campeche, Mexico

23 Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, Towson, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

24 Secretari?a de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sustentable de Salta, Santiago del Estero, Salta, Argentina

25 Fundacio ? n Biodiversidad Argentina, Suipacha, Argentina

26 Peccary Project/IUCN/SSC Peccary Specialist Group, Campo Grande, Brazil

27 Fiocruz ILMD Amazon, Adriano ? polis, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

28 Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogota ?, Colombia

29 Tropical Sustainability Institute–TSI, Carapicu ??ba, Sa?o Paulo, Brazil

30 Faculty Environmental Studies, Prescott College, Prescott, Arizona, USA

Corporate pledges not to buy soybeans produced on land deforested after 2006 have reduced tree clearance in the Brazilian Amazon by just 1.6% between 2006 and 2015.

This equates to a protected area of 2,300 km² in the Amazon rainforest: barely the size of Oxfordshire in the UK.

The findings, made by tracing traders’ soy supplies back to their source, are published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The work involved a team from the University of Cambridge, Boston University, ETH Zurich and New York University.

The researchers also discovered that in the Cerrado, Brazil’s tropical savannah, zero-deforestation commitments have not been adopted effectively — leaving over 50% of soy-suitable forests and their biodiversity without protection.

Brazil has the largest remaining tropical forests on the planet, but these are being rapidly cleared to rear cattle and grow crops including soybean. Demand for soy is surging around the world, and an estimated 4,800 km² of rainforest is cleared each year to grow soybeans.

The majority of soy is consumed indirectly by humans: soybean is widely used as feed for factory-farmed chickens, pigs, fish and cattle. It also accounts for around 27% of global vegetable oil production, and as a complete protein source it often forms a key part of vegetarian and vegan diets.

By 2021, at least 94 companies had adopted zero-deforestation commitments — pledging to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. But the study revealed that many of these commitments are not put into practice.

And the researchers say that adoption of zero-deforestation commitments is lagging among small and medium sized food companies.

“Zero-deforestation pledges are a great first step, but they need to be implemented to have an effect on forests — and right now it’s mainly the bigger companies that have the resources to do this,” said Professor Rachael Garrett, Moran Professor of Conservation and Development at the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, a joint senior author of the report.

She added: “If soybean traders actually implemented their global commitments for zero-deforestation production, current levels of forest clearance in Brazil could be reduced by around 40 percent.”

Deforestation is the second largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions after fossil fuel use. It also causes the loss of diverse animal and plant life, threatens the livelihoods of indigenous groups, and increases inequality and conflict.

The researchers say that the supply chains of other food products including cattle, oil palm and cocoa supply chains are more complex than soy, making them even more difficult to monitor.

“If supply chain policies intend to contribute to the task of tackling deforestation in Brazil, it’s crucial to expand zero-deforestation supply chain policies beyond soy,” said Garrett, who is also Professor of Environmental Policy at ETH Zurich.

A ‘soy moratorium’ was the first voluntary zero-deforestation commitment in the tropics — by signing it, companies agreed not to buy soybeans produced on land deforested after 2006. But while the commitment was implemented in the Brazilian Amazon, most Brazilian soy is produced in the Cerrado — which is rich in biodiversity.

The researchers say their findings suggest private sector efforts are not enough to halt deforestation: supportive political leadership is also vital to conservation efforts.

“Supply chain governance should not be a substitute for state-led forest policies, which are critical to enable zero deforestation monitoring and enforcement, have better potential to cover different crops, land users, and regions,” said Garrett.

In 2021, the COP26 Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use committed to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. It was signed by over 100 countries, representing 85% of global forests.

This week’s Federal Budget included a $224 million allocation to help save threatened species – news that coincides with some concerning findings of a new paper authored by University of South Australia (UniSA) researchers.

A study led by UniSA conservation psychologist Dr Elissa Pearson reveals overwhelming public ignorance of Australia’s most threatened species, a factor that is contributing to the extinction crisis of endangered animals.

UniSA researchers, alongside colleagues from Zoos Victoria and Edith Cowan University, polled more than 300 zoo visitors and community members, testing their awareness of seven endangered species at risk of extinction within the next decade.

“More than 90 per cent of those surveyed did not recognise six of the seven species; the exception being the Tasmanian devil,” Dr Pearson says.

The other species were the Leadbeater’s possum, eastern barred bandicoot, helmeted honeyeater, southern corroboree frog, Lord Howe Island (LHI) stick insect, and orange-bellied parrot.

The Journal for Nature Conservation paper outlines a clear link between species recognition, likeability and conservation support, showing that people are far more inclined to donate toward conserving Australia’s iconic koala, kangaroo and wombat populations, despite these not being endangered.

“There are huge gaps in community knowledge regarding native Australian wildlife, with less than eight per cent of people able to correctly name six of seven endangered species when shown photographs.

“Apart from the Tasmanian devil, which 86 per cent of people recognised, the level of familiarity and knowledge of our vulnerable species is limited. Misidentification is also common, particularly the eastern barred bandicoot which is often mistaken for a bilby.”

The most likeable Australian animals – the koala and kangaroo – also reflect the ‘similarity principle’, which suggests that people tend to prefer animals most like humans, and that when only a limited number of species can be conserved, mammals are favoured over other species, regardless of their endangered status.

The helmeted honeyeater, southern corroboree frog and LHI stick insect were consistently the least liked species.

“Apart from the likeability factor, our study showed that being able to recognise species increased people’s willingness to support their conservation, so that is a starting point we need to address.”

Endangered insects are fighting an uphill battle for support, with 85 per cent of people disliking them, putting their survival at most risk. However, this perception could be changed with some clever marketing initiatives, the researchers suggest.

“The LHI stick insect has some exceptional qualities, such as their resilience and survival against all odds, their ability to reproduce without males, their tendency to form large social groups during the day, or even the fact that their foot pads are heart shaped. If people knew these facts the likeability factor would likely shoot up,” Dr Pearson says.