WEBVTT

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Vicunas have these big eyes,

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wet, puffed out faces,

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rounded skulls,

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and that makes you look at them and have

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and have this feeling of:

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\"What a cutie\".

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The vicuna fiber is the finest
animal fiber in the world,

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after the silkworm.

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You are not only dressing in the fiber,
you are also dressing with the species.

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You are wearing the fabric

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of a charismatic species.

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We have always found them dismembered,

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other times we find

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the remains of the animal\'s body

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so it can later be processed

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and have good economic profitability,

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in the illegal market.

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Up there... up there shit is wild.

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Up there, there is no law.

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Only the quickest survived.

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It\'s the far west.
Up there, only the bullets\' whistle.

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The vicuna has always,

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since it has a bond with humankind,

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been the fiber that dresses

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the powerful.

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On one time,

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we were doing a big inspection.

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We were resting for a while.

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When suddenly...

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five pickup trucks appear,
speeding fast up the road.

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They were avoiding the inspection.

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Everyone got into the pickup trucks
to go chase them.

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The first thing we got was a gunshot.

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We began to repel the attack.

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And when we started...

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... interrogating...

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the person we had under custody,

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I asked: \"Why did you cross the border?\".

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He said, \"we came
to get pickup trucks...

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\"... but we also need to take skin\".

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\"What skin?\"
\"Vicuna skin\", he said.

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\"Why are you taking the vicunas?\"

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\"Because we are selling them\".

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\"And why do you also
carry weapons?\"

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\"To face the police...

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... because we know this is illegal\".

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At the beginning,

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it was created but not enabled

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the Department of Illicit Behaviors
in Environment and Ecology.

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That\'s what it was called before.

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After that,

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at the end of 2000,

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the general director of that time

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comes up with the name BIDEMA,

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they name me chief

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and that\'s when we begin the whole

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environmental-operation, so to speak

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investigating, just like you would work
on any other felony,

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homicide, drug trafficking...

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Everyone looked at us weird.

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I realized that

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I had to

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gather a team that would investigate
the vicuna: Why were they hunting it?

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And I also realize

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that, in this broad piece
of land in the highlands,

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how to know when they come in

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how to know when they start hunting,

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and how to know

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when they are going out with the skins.

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You stand in the desert.
You don\'t see anything anywhere around.

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There is nothing.

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You look that way: rocks.
You look the other way: rocks.

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So I said: \"Well, boys. We do the same
here as any other crime,

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we have to make
the desert talks to us\".

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\"Feel the smells...

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Feel how the desert talks...

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Look at the tracks they leave.

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Why are the footprints of these animals

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buried in the ground.

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Why is the stone where they went by,
cracked this way:

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Did they escape?

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Were they being hunted?

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Are there tire tracks?

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Were they running from left to right,
or from right to left?

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Did they go around the hill?

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Feel how the desert
will start to talk to you\".

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All of that information
that is being raised,

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will tell you what type
of poacher comes here.

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We have to understand that the vicuna has
a very expensive fiber,

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for the international market.

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And the limits of the Parinacota
province are very extended

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and has a large number of vicunas.

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Therefore it is attractive for poachers,
whether they are Chilean, Peruvian or Bolivian.

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The vicuna has no homogeneous
distribution in the territory.

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It\'s not like they are all one meter
away from each other, no.

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They concentrate depending on the food
and water supply.

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At night they go to higher places
to sleep.

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And during the day they descend
to the feeding spots.

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So, that route

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they already know it.

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And so what the poachers did
was to stay the night

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and wait until dawn

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and...

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... they shot them.

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They would normally shoot the male first,

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who is the one to lead the group.

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Therefore they beheaded
the chance...

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... these animals had to escape.

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And in this mess, they shoot every
other member of the group.

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The killing shifted to

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a skinning process made very
violently and very fast.

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One, two, three, four, five... even

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twenty vicunas

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dead, skinned.

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It didn\'t matter if they were offspring,

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male, female,
pregnant, not pregnant...

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...it made no difference.

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I think the poacher
does a horrible thing,

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because he kills an animal to take
its skin, even though

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you don\'t need to kill the animal
to use its fur.

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Like every corrupt entity,

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it\'s taking the wrong path.

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With the vicuna fiber,

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you can make

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coats,

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jackets,

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you can make stoles,

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scarfs.

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I mean, the fiber allows you to make
stitched fibers or flat knitted fibers.

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A poncho, a cape...

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This fiber is very thin and, therefore,

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it keeps you very warm,
but it\'s very light.

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It practically doesn\'t weigh at all.

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And this is the main reason for
its quality and fineness to the fabric.

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In the case of the vicuna, since
the Inca Empire, and even before,

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they understood that the vicuna has
a very important feature:

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When kept in captivity
they cannot reproduce.

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Therefore, they had to live
in the wild pampas

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that are four thousand meters high,
or more, and there

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where the indigenous communities
that looked after them and kept them.

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In this morning, Monday 16th,
all of us here, are going to make a

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plea of license and authorization to
proceed to make a film recording,

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with Glaciar Films.

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Tata Willka or Tata Inti,

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we ask for the authorization

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and the license to begin
these film recordings.

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Protective hills,
the gods that are present,

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we thank you for the license
to continue this work.

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Yuspagarpa,

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¡jallalla!

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The vicuna is Wari,

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that\'s the Aymara name.

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The vicuna is an emblem,

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as important as the condor
and the cougar.

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The indigenous communities

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of the Aymara and the Quechua people,

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the original authorities dressed:

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with the vicuna scarf, vicuna poncho,
the women wore vicuna blankets.

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They are part of the experience and
the culture of the Aymara people.

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There is a whole ritual
involving vicunas.

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The vicuna is the sacred animal
for the Incas.

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During the ceremonies
the Inca King would dress...

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... with the fur of the vicuna.

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He would wear it like a blanket,
as a trophy.

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The vicuna lives over the 4.500 meters
high, that\'s its habitat.

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In the mountain.

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The spirits live in the mountain.

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Our fathers, our grandfathers,
when they pass away,

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they physically disappear,

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but their spirit lives in the mountains,
from where they look at us.

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And who lives at that same hight?
The vicuna.

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The South-American camelids,
are physiological wonders.

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They are animals that have
an enormous resistance

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and are very efficient
in their use of resources.

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And the vicuna in particular
it\'s a species that...

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... perfectly endures very low
temperatures and very unfavorable

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climate conditions,

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and a food supply
which is very crude and scarce,

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that gives very low energy,
anyhow they live and reproduce perfectly.

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They are one of those species
that live in extreme conditions.

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An animal is able to run at about
at 50 kilometers per hour

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at 4.000 or 5.000 meters above sea level,

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In my opinion, it\'s remarkable.

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And I have seen vicunas running,

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like a gazelle,

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above

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4.500 meters above sea level

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with no trouble doing so.

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If you go to a 4.500 meters high
location you realize

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that you are actually not designed
to be able to survive there.

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And as much as you make an effort,

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your physical performance is precarious.

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It\'s very precarious.

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Where I have felt the coldest

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in my life

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is in the highlands.

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You\'re there during the day and say: \"Well,

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the night will come and

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it\'ll never be that bad\".

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But it can get to 30 degrees below 0.

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The people that live up there, do so
because they really know the territory,

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otherwise, you won\'t endure.

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You don\'t survive.

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Someone who lives in the highlands
in this moment,

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is a person who knows
practically all of the territory.

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That requires experience.

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It\'s nights,

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it\'s freezing mornings

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and to get that, you have to be there.

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The animals are everything,

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for an Aymara family.

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Your livestock are your meat.

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Your livestock are your milk.

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Your livestock are your clothes.

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Your livestock are your footwear,
your leather.

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It\'s the animal for the ceremonies,
to celebrate the rituals,

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the ceremonies for Mother Earth,
the Pachamama.

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And for millennia it has been the economic
foundation for the highlands\' economy.

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When they killed the first policemen,
because there were two episodes,

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in the second one, I had retired,
and in the first one,

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they shot the police officer on the head,

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and the officer laid dead

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on top of his horse.

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And the horse turned
to the left,

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and then they shot another
17 times to his body.

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We said:

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\"This is not about just going up there
to the highlands...

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... looking for people
that go around hunting vicunas\".

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The hunters, in general,

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work during the night, they use the moon,

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so they can see better

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and they try not to be seen at all.

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That\'s the Tacora volcano.

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We are getting closer

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to a place where

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we once found 12 dead vicunas,

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skinned.

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They were spread, I would say in a
50 or 70 meters radius.

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It was during the night,

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there were a few of us...

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And the climate conditions,
which is the hardest thing.

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Our lab got involved because I made an
invitation to law enforcement entities in Chile

00:19:42.268 --> 00:19:43.951
to come to our lab

00:19:43.951 --> 00:19:48.015
and learn how to process
a wildlife crime scene.

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This is a law enforcement lab focused specifically
on criminal violations or criminal cases,

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Dedicated solely to looking
at illegal wildlife trade.

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And its kind of a difficult expertise because
there is roughly 4.500 mammals in the world.

00:20:12.453 --> 00:20:14.810
There is about 9 thousand birds,

00:20:14.810 --> 00:20:17.509
there is about 12 thousand herps,

00:20:18.159 --> 00:20:20.545
and there is about 60 thousand trees,

00:20:20.545 --> 00:20:25.338
so identifying the evidence for
non-human cases its a bit of a challenge.

00:20:33.504 --> 00:20:35.256
This specimen...

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... was obtained at the airport of Chicago.

00:20:38.700 --> 00:20:41.160
The person that had it with him,

00:20:41.160 --> 00:20:43.237
simply bought it in Poland.

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How does a condor feather...

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... get to Poland?
It\'s hard to understand.

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But this, also,

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proves a condor\'s death

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for a very trivial and simple

00:20:56.884 --> 00:20:58.316
reason.

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When one first arrives to a wildlife
crime scene the question is:

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Is it a crime or is it
a natural mortality of the animal?

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When one doesn\'t know
how to answer those questions,

00:21:15.394 --> 00:21:18.235
what you tend to do is just
throw your hands up in the air

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and say: \"I don\'t know\".

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\"Obviously this animal died several days ago.
There is nothing here I can do about it\".

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But there is.

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Sadly, the place where
these events take place,

00:21:37.711 --> 00:21:40.024
as you can see, is very wide.

00:21:40.024 --> 00:21:43.162
It makes it really difficult for us
to get more information.

00:21:43.162 --> 00:21:46.888
For example, if it was a crime in the city
where there may be security cameras,

00:21:46.888 --> 00:21:47.903
witnesses,

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or the place itself delivers more evidence,

00:21:50.998 --> 00:21:54.685
here the location sometimes delivers us
very little evidence.

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This is generally what\'s...

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... what\'s left.

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From the front limbs,

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they take out all the skin.

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And this is what\'s left:

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what they couldn\'t take off.

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It\'s like an indicator that this
vicuna was hunted

00:22:25.518 --> 00:22:27.417
it didn\'t die from an illness,

00:22:27.417 --> 00:22:28.569
it wasn\'t run-over.

00:22:29.739 --> 00:22:31.179
It was a victim of...

00:22:31.179 --> 00:22:32.913
... poaching.

00:22:36.139 --> 00:22:39.843
If one was able to take the clothing

00:22:40.442 --> 00:22:42.005
or the knife

00:22:42.005 --> 00:22:46.784
or the objects they used for skinning
the animal, and collected its DNA

00:22:47.365 --> 00:22:49.965
and compare against the animals
found in the crime scene,

00:22:50.574 --> 00:22:53.280
then you can make
that one to one connection.

00:22:58.296 --> 00:23:00.847
It\'s likely that they are
recurrent hunters.

00:23:01.513 --> 00:23:04.333
The way they make the cuts is
also well known by now,

00:23:04.333 --> 00:23:06.733
the person who did it

00:23:06.733 --> 00:23:10.382
holds knowledge in this sort of felony

00:23:10.382 --> 00:23:13.548
or illegal trafficking he does
for whoever requests for it.

00:23:14.046 --> 00:23:17.482
So there is an interaction between
the victim and the suspect,

00:23:17.482 --> 00:23:19.378
and the crime scene proper.

00:23:20.416 --> 00:23:22.932
And collecting the evidence
at the crime scene,

00:23:22.932 --> 00:23:25.866
is your only one chance opportunity

00:23:25.866 --> 00:23:27.652
to figure out what happened,

00:23:27.652 --> 00:23:29.398
to solve the crime.

00:23:34.061 --> 00:23:35.508
I imagine

00:23:35.508 --> 00:23:38.650
that the suspects,
doing the vicuña killing,

00:23:39.708 --> 00:23:43.463
have to be covered in blood
from the vicuña.

00:23:45.384 --> 00:23:48.174
So, all of that evidence, if it\'s collected

00:23:48.174 --> 00:23:50.246
and preserved properly,

00:23:50.246 --> 00:23:51.246
can link

00:23:52.052 --> 00:23:53.052
the suspect

00:23:53.750 --> 00:23:55.448
to not only the crime scene,

00:23:55.448 --> 00:23:56.898
but to the victim.

00:23:58.915 --> 00:24:02.257
What hunters do, obviously,
is to skip through the whole process

00:24:02.942 --> 00:24:04.770
of handling the vicuna.

00:24:05.892 --> 00:24:08.072
For whatever reason.

00:24:08.072 --> 00:24:09.948
Then, they sell it.

00:24:09.948 --> 00:24:12.858
It has to be sold to people who
are willing to buy

00:24:12.858 --> 00:24:15.650
and skip through all the procedures,
all the processes.

00:24:15.650 --> 00:24:19.546
Is there an informal market? Of course
there is an informal market for it.

00:24:23.131 --> 00:24:27.607
At one point we captured an illegal
hunter and we saw the tools they carried

00:24:27.607 --> 00:24:29.727
and they were really rudimentary.

00:24:29.727 --> 00:24:31.662
The truth is that it\'s a lifestyle

00:24:31.662 --> 00:24:34.082
that demonstrates the...

00:24:34.082 --> 00:24:38.703
... the scarcity of many
people who live in the highlands.

00:24:39.023 --> 00:24:42.837
During the wintertime it\'s
minus 25 degrees, so...

00:24:42.837 --> 00:24:45.399
they are used to it.
they walk around in sandals.

00:24:45.962 --> 00:24:49.027
The tracks I followed were sandals tracks.

00:25:13.648 --> 00:25:16.192
The communities protect the vicunas,

00:25:16.192 --> 00:25:17.013
but

00:25:17.013 --> 00:25:19.228
people from other places come

00:25:19.228 --> 00:25:22.378
and they even cross the border
from one country to another.

00:25:22.378 --> 00:25:24.608
And, in the last ten years,

00:25:24.608 --> 00:25:27.244
we have seen that they kill them

00:25:27.244 --> 00:25:28.668
and they take their leather.

00:25:28.668 --> 00:25:30.514
Although people don\'t believe it,

00:25:30.514 --> 00:25:33.037
the vicuna is a very important animal

00:25:33.037 --> 00:25:36.268
within the knowledge and the culture

00:25:36.268 --> 00:25:38.888
of the animal wildlife on the planet.

00:25:38.888 --> 00:25:41.570
Because of its beauty, its prominent eyes,

00:25:41.570 --> 00:25:43.753
its rare colouring,

00:25:43.753 --> 00:25:46.373
and for the unique
places it lives in,

00:25:46.373 --> 00:25:50.613
the vicuna, as a species, has an iconic
place in this part of the world,

00:25:50.613 --> 00:25:51.827
and moreover

00:25:51.827 --> 00:25:54.453
it was considered by ancestral cultures as

00:25:54.453 --> 00:25:56.623
the Queen of the Andes.

00:26:00.174 --> 00:26:03.904
During the Inca empire,
a big festivity was held,

00:26:03.904 --> 00:26:05.754
which was called the Chaku

00:26:05.754 --> 00:26:09.338
where hundreds of people came down
to the hills at dawn,

00:26:09.338 --> 00:26:11.509
herding the vicunas,

00:26:11.509 --> 00:26:13.539
towards these big stone yards,

00:26:13.539 --> 00:26:17.511
where they were sheared
and some were sacrificed.

00:26:17.511 --> 00:26:20.506
They were probably more than seven
million vicunas, if not more,

00:26:20.506 --> 00:26:24.852
at the time when Incas lived
all over the highlands.

00:26:40.779 --> 00:26:43.829
For the Incas, the dresses
are very important.

00:26:43.829 --> 00:26:47.293
The people used a lot of camelid fibers,

00:26:47.293 --> 00:26:51.403
but they used different kind
of camelid fibers:

00:26:51.403 --> 00:26:53.417
Llamas, alpacas

00:26:53.417 --> 00:26:55.193
and also vicuñas.

00:26:57.043 --> 00:26:59.910
The vicuña wool is very different
from the alpacas.

00:27:00.321 --> 00:27:01.748
Is so thin that,

00:27:01.748 --> 00:27:03.218
at first sight,

00:27:03.218 --> 00:27:05.218
we are not sure if it\'s painted

00:27:05.218 --> 00:27:06.638
or if it\'s waved.

00:27:09.065 --> 00:27:12.835
If you look at an alpaca or llamas,
they have long hairs,

00:27:12.835 --> 00:27:14.035
quite long,

00:27:14.035 --> 00:27:18.625
but the vicuña is very short,
so it\'s difficult to make the threads.

00:27:18.625 --> 00:27:21.389
So you need specialists to do that.

00:27:22.371 --> 00:27:25.938
It\'s also a reason why we know that it is

00:27:26.468 --> 00:27:28.705
dedicated only for the emperor.

00:27:31.575 --> 00:27:36.399
Most of the Pre-Columbian people

00:27:36.399 --> 00:27:38.826
are working on a duality.

00:27:40.256 --> 00:27:42.300
There are always two things:

00:27:42.300 --> 00:27:43.830
there is sun and moon,

00:27:43.830 --> 00:27:45.280
days and night,

00:27:45.280 --> 00:27:46.280
woman and man...

00:27:46.280 --> 00:27:49.108
And for them, the weaving is

00:27:49.108 --> 00:27:52.058
just putting vertical
and horizontal lines,

00:27:52.058 --> 00:27:55.053
and so its a combination
of those two lines.

00:27:56.168 --> 00:27:59.070
So when you are creating a textile,

00:27:59.070 --> 00:28:01.950
you are participating to the creation

00:28:01.950 --> 00:28:05.504
of this duality and the
combination of this duality.

00:28:05.504 --> 00:28:08.445
So there is a philosophical reason
and a practical reason

00:28:08.445 --> 00:28:10.621
why the textile are so important.

00:28:10.621 --> 00:28:11.898
And we know that,

00:28:11.898 --> 00:28:16.218
if you want to make a very nice
sacrifice for the gods,

00:28:16.218 --> 00:28:19.061
the most valuable things you can do

00:28:19.061 --> 00:28:21.041
is to create a textile and then,

00:28:21.041 --> 00:28:22.171
offer it to the gods,

00:28:22.171 --> 00:28:24.079
and burn it.

00:28:36.598 --> 00:28:40.553
Once the Inca empire falls, the
Chaku disappears as a phenomenon

00:28:40.553 --> 00:28:42.991
and it probably transcended but

00:28:42.991 --> 00:28:45.126
in less significant form.

00:28:47.593 --> 00:28:53.230
The Spanish empire brings the use of
firearms in Latin America; therefore,

00:28:55.090 --> 00:28:58.791
hunting vicunas becomes an
alternative to the Chaku.

00:29:04.466 --> 00:29:09.533
And the garments, capes, hats
and other clothing items,

00:29:09.533 --> 00:29:12.447
of the royalty in France, Great Britain,

00:29:12.447 --> 00:29:14.413
had vicuna fiber in them.

00:29:14.413 --> 00:29:17.616
That fiber had been the cause

00:29:17.616 --> 00:29:19.876
of fierce hunting

00:29:19.876 --> 00:29:23.376
in all of the highlands of Peru, Bolivia,
Chile and Argentina,

00:29:23.376 --> 00:29:24.806
for centuries.

00:29:24.806 --> 00:29:26.337
I believe that during the \'70s,

00:29:26.337 --> 00:29:30.176
the vicuna population was
an endangered species, that\'s right,

00:29:30.176 --> 00:29:31.426
just as...

00:29:31.426 --> 00:29:33.925
... just as the worst situation of...

00:29:33.925 --> 00:29:37.787
... of the charismatic species
that inhabit the African steppe.

00:29:42.560 --> 00:29:44.465
Vicunas were almost nowhere to be seen.

00:29:44.779 --> 00:29:48.411
You just saw the dust from when they fled.

00:29:48.411 --> 00:29:51.977
They stayed far away from
the human population.

00:29:56.806 --> 00:29:58.980
Until it got to a critical point,

00:29:58.980 --> 00:30:02.780
and Chile started protecting
around 500 vicunas

00:30:02.780 --> 00:30:04.844
that still survived in the highlands,

00:30:04.844 --> 00:30:07.803
on what was next to be
Lauca National Park.

00:30:12.627 --> 00:30:17.373
When the CITES convention began, it started
as a reaction from the countries that

00:30:17.373 --> 00:30:21.075
had trouble because of
the illegal trafficking in their borders,

00:30:21.075 --> 00:30:23.993
with species that were
being preserved,

00:30:23.993 --> 00:30:25.268
during the \'70s.

00:30:25.268 --> 00:30:29.256
It\'s especially done for the Asian
and African animals, where

00:30:29.256 --> 00:30:32.186
there was a lot of trophy hunting.

00:30:32.186 --> 00:30:37.377
They took advantage of this
situation, and the vicuna was included

00:30:37.377 --> 00:30:40.395
on the endangered species.

00:30:40.827 --> 00:30:46.866
Police patrols were implemented to
several areas of the vicuna habitat.

00:31:00.840 --> 00:31:03.080
People from the surroundings got hired,

00:31:03.080 --> 00:31:05.417
as forest rangers, so

00:31:05.417 --> 00:31:07.467
the community was involved

00:31:07.467 --> 00:31:11.467
and then CONAF started to take action,

00:31:11.467 --> 00:31:15.154
and make scientific investigations,
because they didn\'t know much...

00:31:15.154 --> 00:31:17.234
... about the species...

00:31:17.234 --> 00:31:18.234
... at all.

00:31:22.949 --> 00:31:25.458
The population increase

00:31:25.458 --> 00:31:27.729
was exponential,

00:31:27.729 --> 00:31:29.219
until the year 1990.

00:31:29.219 --> 00:31:32.794
The census that year estimated
around 20 thousand individuals.

00:31:36.556 --> 00:31:37.556
It started to grow.

00:31:37.556 --> 00:31:40.034
The vicunas started to be seen

00:31:40.034 --> 00:31:42.123
closer to the towns.

00:31:42.123 --> 00:31:44.738
They even started to

00:31:44.738 --> 00:31:46.743
coexist with the domestic population,

00:31:46.743 --> 00:31:49.391
the llamas and the alpacas.

00:31:57.160 --> 00:31:59.613
Dead vicunas...
Two of them.

00:32:09.703 --> 00:32:11.773
We have a resource here

00:32:11.773 --> 00:32:13.413
that is not being used:

00:32:13.413 --> 00:32:15.203
the vicuna fiber.

00:32:15.203 --> 00:32:16.773
Now,

00:32:16.773 --> 00:32:20.686
if the vicuna gives resources
to the people of the highlands,

00:32:20.686 --> 00:32:24.000
these people will want to protect

00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:27.450
this resource.

00:32:27.450 --> 00:32:29.666
The issue is: how to actually do it.

00:32:30.176 --> 00:32:33.200
We didn\'t know if they would die when
we sheared them.

00:32:33.200 --> 00:32:34.576
We didn\'t know anything.

00:32:34.576 --> 00:32:36.399
So,

00:32:36.399 --> 00:32:40.526
a good measure was thinking that from this

00:32:40.526 --> 00:32:43.626
we had to make a pilot project,

00:32:44.276 --> 00:32:47.458
to make a first shearing experience

00:32:47.458 --> 00:32:51.684
that could be monitored and
supervised by investigators,

00:32:51.684 --> 00:32:54.373
who had participation from the people

00:32:54.373 --> 00:32:58.024
and that produced the first
kilogram of vicuna fiber.

00:33:01.256 --> 00:33:04.830
First of all, when we herd the vicunas
we need at least...

00:33:04.830 --> 00:33:06.647
... at least 20 people.

00:33:07.308 --> 00:33:11.088
We invited the neighbors,
our family from Arica

00:33:11.088 --> 00:33:14.943
who don\'t suffer from altitude sickness.
So we gathered them,

00:33:14.943 --> 00:33:16.683
and that created a sense of union.

00:33:17.738 --> 00:33:20.354
We were innovating, something new.

00:33:20.354 --> 00:33:23.894
We had never done
vicuna handling before.

00:33:23.894 --> 00:33:26.940
Therefore, our enthusiasm was huge.

00:33:30.182 --> 00:33:31.943
I started designing

00:33:31.943 --> 00:33:34.403
a tunnel capturing system

00:33:34.403 --> 00:33:37.302
that had protection against any impacts.

00:33:37.302 --> 00:33:42.292
I focused on the visual isolation factor.

00:33:42.292 --> 00:33:44.537
A hood, that ended up being very useful,

00:33:44.537 --> 00:33:48.564
because of the heart rate of the
individuals wearing a hood,

00:33:48.564 --> 00:33:52.264
decreased evidently, once you
were able to cover its eyes.

00:34:06.696 --> 00:34:11.803
And finally, after the release,
the animals who had been sheared

00:34:11.803 --> 00:34:14.918
managed to recover and stabilize
their temperature,

00:34:14.918 --> 00:34:18.505
and face their fiber generation process.

00:34:20.337 --> 00:34:23.746
That\'s why it was such an interesting
model internationally,

00:34:23.746 --> 00:34:27.656
because it was an example of how to
save a species from extinction,

00:34:27.656 --> 00:34:32.023
using the species sustainably
without the need to hunt it.

00:34:35.881 --> 00:34:37.574
We were able to develop

00:34:37.574 --> 00:34:40.431
nine vicuna breeders.

00:34:40.431 --> 00:34:46.987
And we had two areas where we
captured vicunas who lived in the wild.

00:34:48.652 --> 00:34:54.525
I was able to have 120 vicunas,
on a 60-hectare space,

00:34:54.525 --> 00:34:57.621
because vicuna proliferation
is very quick.

00:34:58.545 --> 00:35:01.459
The Surire community recovered its town,

00:35:01.459 --> 00:35:04.859
and so the Chaku not only became
a productive practice,

00:35:04.859 --> 00:35:08.374
but it also became a practice for renewing

00:35:08.374 --> 00:35:12.412
family bonds, renewing cultural bonds,

00:35:12.412 --> 00:35:15.712
and finally,
for recovering de Aymara culture.

00:35:20.582 --> 00:35:24.386
The United Nations, in 2005,

00:35:24.386 --> 00:35:29.683
acknowledged the Vicuna Project to be one of
the ten most relevant projects

00:35:29.683 --> 00:35:33.423
to the comprehension and the understanding
of sustainability in Latin America.

00:35:35.107 --> 00:35:37.177
Made here in Chile.

00:35:49.171 --> 00:35:54.091
For seven years I was around llamas and
alpacas, where I made the vicuna handlings.

00:35:54.091 --> 00:35:56.471
I became close to them.

00:35:56.471 --> 00:35:59.361
But I saw I was all alone,
I had to do everything:

00:35:59.361 --> 00:36:02.891
cook for the dog, for myself,
do the herding, get to Arica... everything.

00:36:02.891 --> 00:36:05.005
It\'s too much, it upsets you.

00:36:05.005 --> 00:36:06.621
It\'s a pity, I\'m sorry about it.

00:36:06.621 --> 00:36:09.020
I feel guilty in a way, I feel as if...

00:36:09.020 --> 00:36:10.227
... I\'m in debt,

00:36:10.227 --> 00:36:14.651
like I abandoned something
that was mine: the experience.

00:36:17.965 --> 00:36:19.441
It\'s very difficult

00:36:20.285 --> 00:36:21.720
to actually do

00:36:22.510 --> 00:36:23.875
these captures,

00:36:23.875 --> 00:36:25.471
make the shearing,

00:36:25.471 --> 00:36:29.509
if you don\'t have people, if you don\'t have
an organized community.

00:36:29.989 --> 00:36:31.640
And we don\'t have that,

00:36:31.640 --> 00:36:32.930
nowadays.

00:36:32.930 --> 00:36:36.353
The conditions aren\'t there. Why?
Because the people from the highlands

00:36:36.353 --> 00:36:38.591
come down to the cities
because they don\'t have

00:36:38.591 --> 00:36:41.309
the basic conditions
to survive in the highland.

00:36:46.708 --> 00:36:49.533
This fence is

00:36:49.533 --> 00:36:54.648
six kilometers and 500 meters
long, approximately.

00:36:54.648 --> 00:36:58.937
To go around the whole captivity area
it\'s about four or five kilometers,

00:36:58.937 --> 00:37:03.110
because you have to count the pastures,
how many males, how many females,

00:37:03.110 --> 00:37:05.701
how many offsprings,
and then you have to put it...

00:37:06.701 --> 00:37:08.108
... on the record.

00:37:08.108 --> 00:37:10.761
So, I walked several kilometers

00:37:10.761 --> 00:37:14.291
and afterward, I also had to
pick up my domestic animals.

00:37:14.291 --> 00:37:18.291
In total, on one day I would walk
something like 15 kilometers.

00:37:18.291 --> 00:37:22.681
In the year 2017, I remember the census,

00:37:22.681 --> 00:37:24.331
160,

00:37:25.151 --> 00:37:27.114
but they gave 98 to me.

00:37:29.417 --> 00:37:31.395
Now there is none.

00:37:31.395 --> 00:37:35.014
It says here six
and four offsprings, the last one.

00:37:36.274 --> 00:37:38.743
That was in the year 2017.

00:37:39.274 --> 00:37:40.765
Until last year,

00:37:41.459 --> 00:37:45.224
there were around 12 vicunas left, and
that number kept getting lower and lower.

00:37:45.224 --> 00:37:49.674
Here I have the closing book,
we closed it along with the CONAF

00:37:49.674 --> 00:37:51.770
and we signed it and that was that.

00:37:51.770 --> 00:37:53.617
Here it\'s over,

00:37:54.286 --> 00:37:58.846
because there were only a few of us.
We couldn\'t make ends meet.

00:38:01.028 --> 00:38:04.225
I was really enthusiastic
about raising vicunas, but...

00:38:04.225 --> 00:38:06.399
... it was sadly my loss.

00:38:20.713 --> 00:38:24.542
No one wants to live here,
above 4 thousand meters,

00:38:24.542 --> 00:38:28.012
because they get to know Arica once
and they don\'t want to come back,

00:38:28.012 --> 00:38:30.878
because it\'s completely different:
the commodities,

00:38:30.878 --> 00:38:32.538
nature\'s inclemency,

00:38:32.538 --> 00:38:35.142
the remoteness,
the social geographic marginalization.

00:38:35.142 --> 00:38:37.457
Young people don\'t want to return.

00:38:37.457 --> 00:38:39.047
For me, it\'s sad and unfortunate.

00:38:39.047 --> 00:38:40.282
Very sad, because

00:38:40.282 --> 00:38:42.565
the reality I lived during my childhood,

00:38:42.565 --> 00:38:47.348
when I first went to school
in Caquena, we were 35 students.

00:38:47.348 --> 00:38:49.718
Now there are two or three.

00:38:49.718 --> 00:38:51.752
The Putani village has no school,

00:38:51.752 --> 00:38:53.928
and the houses are all in ruins,

00:38:53.928 --> 00:38:59.018
and we remain at the farms.
We have nothing, no drinking water, nothing.

00:39:01.948 --> 00:39:04.209
Once the Interior Minister
asked me:

00:39:04.209 --> 00:39:07.358
\"Sixto: What will happen 5 years
from now in the highlands\".

00:39:07.358 --> 00:39:08.649
I said:

00:39:08.649 --> 00:39:11.159
\"It will be more abandoned
than it already is\".

00:39:11.159 --> 00:39:13.239
It is a reality, we have to accept it.

00:39:24.351 --> 00:39:29.768
If one goes to Bolivia and Peru, you can
clearly see there\'s a greater population.

00:39:29.768 --> 00:39:34.758
They have economic activities associated
to the domestic camelid production.

00:39:34.758 --> 00:39:37.908
Therefore they have access
to the use of natural resources

00:39:37.908 --> 00:39:40.783
in a much more direct way
than what we find here in Chile.

00:39:43.731 --> 00:39:47.357
These are multicultural republics

00:39:47.357 --> 00:39:50.061
and their constitutions
acknowledge it that way.

00:39:50.061 --> 00:39:54.125
They experience their ethnic origins

00:39:54.125 --> 00:39:57.261
in a very different way
than how we do it here in Chile.

00:39:57.261 --> 00:39:59.915
I think that indigenous recognition

00:39:59.915 --> 00:40:01.457
is fundamental,

00:40:01.457 --> 00:40:03.820
to understand how our country works.

00:40:03.820 --> 00:40:07.656
And through that indigenous recognition,
we would give an identity

00:40:07.656 --> 00:40:10.810
to that highland territory,
that was lost at one point,

00:40:11.600 --> 00:40:16.351
and along with it,
contribute to the vicuna conservation.

00:40:20.577 --> 00:40:21.981
You did the knot, right?
Yes

00:40:21.981 --> 00:40:24.362
Is it ready?
Okay, don\'t let it fall to the ground.

00:40:24.693 --> 00:40:26.893
Okay, steady.

00:40:26.893 --> 00:40:29.148
High honors to our national flag!

00:40:29.663 --> 00:40:31.083
Look to the right!

00:40:31.083 --> 00:40:33.101
Attention!

00:40:35.352 --> 00:40:39.300
We have to understand that,
when the peace agreement is signed

00:40:39.300 --> 00:40:41.800
in 1929 with Peru,

00:40:41.800 --> 00:40:43.550
through the Ancon Treaty,

00:40:43.550 --> 00:40:45.216
the countries\' borders are created,

00:40:45.216 --> 00:40:48.761
but people still have a sense of
belonging to their cultural background.

00:40:53.186 --> 00:40:57.073
That\'s our case. As a family, we belong

00:40:57.073 --> 00:41:00.137
to the indigenous community of Ancomarca.

00:41:02.372 --> 00:41:07.104
Ancomarca was the most important Peruvian-
Chilean-Bolivian indigenous community

00:41:07.734 --> 00:41:09.611
on this highland territory.

00:41:09.611 --> 00:41:12.496
Ancomarca\'s cultural center
is placed in Peru.

00:41:14.291 --> 00:41:16.208
So then: Where do you go to pray?

00:41:16.208 --> 00:41:18.136
where do you go and do your ceremonies?

00:41:18.136 --> 00:41:21.936
where do you go to meet your fellow
citizens, if you can\'t anymore?

00:41:21.936 --> 00:41:24.357
So, it also destroys the community.

00:41:25.207 --> 00:41:28.770
That\'s why there are many families
who have uncles and grandparents in Tacna,

00:41:28.770 --> 00:41:30.440
uncles and grandparents in La Paz,

00:41:30.440 --> 00:41:32.322
uncles and grandparents in Charaña

00:41:32.322 --> 00:41:34.052
and some were left here in Chile.

00:41:34.825 --> 00:41:38.445
Do you feel more Chilean than Peruvian?
Or more Bolivian than Chilean?

00:41:39.581 --> 00:41:41.581
Or are we really just a big Andean nation

00:41:41.581 --> 00:41:45.809
that to this day is still protecting it\'s
territories and can live like a community?

00:41:47.556 --> 00:41:51.316
But a community without its cultural and
religious core, cannot be.

00:41:51.316 --> 00:41:54.221
And that\'s a reality that
lives on to this day.

00:42:02.824 --> 00:42:04.469
Should we go to the Chilean one?

00:42:25.348 --> 00:42:28.771
When the legal commercialization

00:42:28.771 --> 00:42:30.180
of vicuna fiber begins,

00:42:30.640 --> 00:42:32.590
illegal hunting intensifies.

00:42:38.703 --> 00:42:41.343
That rise happens because

00:42:41.343 --> 00:42:45.813
there are now formal channels
of fiber commercialization,

00:42:45.813 --> 00:42:48.643
where people, perhaps uncaringly,

00:42:48.643 --> 00:42:50.630
go and buy

00:42:50.630 --> 00:42:52.642
lots of fiber that have been

00:42:52.642 --> 00:42:54.752
acquired illegally.

00:43:05.167 --> 00:43:08.246
This is not just a problem of the State.

00:43:08.816 --> 00:43:10.672
This problem belongs to every one of us.

00:43:10.672 --> 00:43:16.657
If I give all of the responsibility on the
trafficking of exotic species to the State

00:43:16.657 --> 00:43:20.345
because I want them to do it
and not represent me, then yes

00:43:20.345 --> 00:43:25.375
It is very likely that the State doesn\'t
have all the strength I would want

00:43:25.375 --> 00:43:29.446
to be able to control such a wide territory.

00:43:33.015 --> 00:43:34.375
To be honest,

00:43:34.375 --> 00:43:36.655
I am really worried,

00:43:36.655 --> 00:43:38.452
because we are realizing

00:43:38.452 --> 00:43:40.686
that the vicunas are
being threatened again.

00:43:40.686 --> 00:43:43.926
The species are in real danger

00:43:43.926 --> 00:43:46.126
because of illegal hunting,

00:43:46.126 --> 00:43:50.456
and because the alleged economic
benefits to the communities

00:43:50.456 --> 00:43:53.026
are not as real as we expected.

00:43:58.117 --> 00:44:00.205
What\'s being said about...

00:44:00.205 --> 00:44:02.920
...illegal hunting,
is just the tip of the iceberg.

00:44:03.114 --> 00:44:04.794
The chain needs to be cut

00:44:04.794 --> 00:44:08.803
precisely on the link where
the transaction is made:

00:44:08.803 --> 00:44:10.258
the buyer.

00:44:16.727 --> 00:44:18.284
Regarding the gravity

00:44:18.284 --> 00:44:20.857
of the sales chain

00:44:20.857 --> 00:44:22.962
of this kind of species,

00:44:22.962 --> 00:44:24.396
it\'s as serious

00:44:24.396 --> 00:44:25.763
for the one who

00:44:25.763 --> 00:44:28.674
sells it, as it is for the one
who buys it:

00:44:29.460 --> 00:44:33.147
\"You are also responsible for the
damage infringed upon this animal\".

00:44:39.990 --> 00:44:43.124
We were developing an
investigation on drug trafficking,

00:44:43.124 --> 00:44:45.438
with the Anti-narcotics Brigade
at the airport.

00:44:51.418 --> 00:44:52.992
In that context,

00:44:52.992 --> 00:44:54.985
we went by a store

00:44:54.985 --> 00:44:57.644
and found a huge beautiful blanket

00:44:57.644 --> 00:44:59.484
made from vicuna,

00:44:59.484 --> 00:45:01.084
and of course it gets your attention.

00:45:03.209 --> 00:45:07.587
When the whole procedures finishes,
with the trafficker\'s detention,

00:45:07.587 --> 00:45:09.717
I go back to the place

00:45:09.717 --> 00:45:11.236
and then

00:45:11.236 --> 00:45:13.502
I start going through the CITES regulation.

00:45:15.166 --> 00:45:18.896
It was determined that the regulation
were not implemented,

00:45:18.896 --> 00:45:20.708
that there was no CITES certification,

00:45:20.708 --> 00:45:22.853
and in consequence, you find yourself in an...

00:45:22.853 --> 00:45:23.713
...illegal market.

00:45:25.759 --> 00:45:28.726
For that blanket to exist in that place,

00:45:28.726 --> 00:45:30.287
its first logical consequence

00:45:30.287 --> 00:45:33.016
has to be: its regularity.

00:45:34.212 --> 00:45:38.676
I mean no one in northern Chile would
make one sole blanket to sell

00:45:38.676 --> 00:45:41.316
to a luxury store at the airport, no.

00:45:41.316 --> 00:45:44.212
The first logical consequence:
there is regularity here.

00:46:06.655 --> 00:46:09.284
The chief of New Zealand,
I forgot his name,

00:46:09.284 --> 00:46:12.106
but he was an elderly man at the time,

00:46:12.716 --> 00:46:14.196
calls me,

00:46:15.006 --> 00:46:16.866
and he says: \"Víctor...

00:46:16.866 --> 00:46:21.446
... we made a huge inspection...

00:46:21.446 --> 00:46:24.246
... and on one of the containers on a ship

00:46:24.246 --> 00:46:27.526
in transit from Japan to New Zealand,

00:46:27.526 --> 00:46:29.112
we put it under the X-ray.

00:46:30.075 --> 00:46:32.139
It had a hidden space like a double depth,

00:46:32.558 --> 00:46:34.929
we opened that hidden space,

00:46:34.929 --> 00:46:36.875
we took the lid off

00:46:36.875 --> 00:46:40.478
and inside, there were 14 vicuna skins
transformed into rugs\".

00:46:40.478 --> 00:46:43.578
We started to investigate that trail,

00:46:43.578 --> 00:46:45.008
the journey of that product,

00:46:45.008 --> 00:46:46.487
how did that product get there,

00:46:46.487 --> 00:46:48.170
where did that product come from,

00:46:48.170 --> 00:46:51.868
where is this kind of species being sold.

00:46:53.600 --> 00:46:55.568
We found products that came from vicunas.

00:46:55.885 --> 00:46:57.595
It was not an isolated phenomenon.

00:47:00.787 --> 00:47:05.210
They did electrophoresis in New Zealand,
to see its DNA and find out what it was.

00:47:05.210 --> 00:47:07.064
They gave us the samples,

00:47:07.644 --> 00:47:10.790
and they were our vicunas,
from our highlands.

00:47:11.270 --> 00:47:15.278
Then he said: \"You need to put an eye on
this, because you have vicuna trafficking\".

00:47:15.278 --> 00:47:17.070
They were being taken to New Zealand,

00:47:17.070 --> 00:47:18.661
and they were taking them

00:47:18.661 --> 00:47:20.191
from right here, from Chile.

00:47:21.921 --> 00:47:24.258
I said to the boys:
\"Okay, let\'s see.

00:47:24.258 --> 00:47:27.331
If they are sending rugs,
someone is tanning them\".

00:47:30.347 --> 00:47:31.927
Because it\'s one thing to

00:47:32.540 --> 00:47:33.940
kill the animal,

00:47:34.342 --> 00:47:36.821
then skinning the animal,

00:47:36.821 --> 00:47:39.762
and another process is tanning the fiber.

00:47:39.762 --> 00:47:43.988
There was an investigation hypothesis that
needs to be developed: whether this was licit.

00:47:43.988 --> 00:47:45.626
No, it wasn\'t licit.

00:47:46.785 --> 00:47:48.443
The investigation...

00:47:48.443 --> 00:47:51.303
... is complicated, on all that has to do
with the desert.

00:47:51.303 --> 00:47:54.973
At that time there wasn\'t a good enough
legislation like there is now,

00:47:54.973 --> 00:47:58.881
for example coming from CITES, which
specifically penalizes smuggling.

00:47:58.881 --> 00:48:01.381
As a consequence,

00:48:01.381 --> 00:48:05.201
the weak legislation available
to investigate this felony,

00:48:05.201 --> 00:48:08.119
was the reason why we couldn\'t
proceed with the investigation.

00:48:18.972 --> 00:48:23.238
But, low punishment felonies

00:48:24.789 --> 00:48:26.853
have one good thing for the investigator,

00:48:26.853 --> 00:48:28.738
that is the possibility for negotiation

00:48:28.738 --> 00:48:29.858
with the defendant.

00:48:31.065 --> 00:48:32.065
In consequence,

00:48:33.073 --> 00:48:35.991
if the crime has low punishment,
I can say to the defendant:

00:48:35.991 --> 00:48:37.817
\"Mister defendant.

00:48:37.817 --> 00:48:39.991
You are selling this,

00:48:40.531 --> 00:48:42.722
you can, ultimately,

00:48:42.722 --> 00:48:45.475
go through negotiation with me,
I lower your sentence,

00:48:46.246 --> 00:48:48.108
but you have to indicate to me...

00:48:48.108 --> 00:48:49.828
... who sold it to you\".

00:50:03.589 --> 00:50:06.129
Up there near the Bolivian border,

00:50:06.129 --> 00:50:07.819
I had a nickname:

00:50:08.562 --> 00:50:09.860
Billy.

00:50:14.470 --> 00:50:17.372
He was a very good shooter,
he had great aiming skills,

00:50:17.372 --> 00:50:18.897
and he had a very nice rifle.

00:50:19.502 --> 00:50:21.722
He knew the desert very well.

00:50:34.328 --> 00:50:36.128
He got away twice.

00:50:36.831 --> 00:50:39.012
One of those times when he got away,

00:50:39.012 --> 00:50:40.510
I\'m sure...

00:50:40.510 --> 00:50:42.784
... I\'m sure we went right by him.

00:50:43.234 --> 00:50:46.027
And he had such great camouflage,

00:50:46.027 --> 00:50:48.014
that I\'m sure he buried himself.

00:50:48.014 --> 00:50:51.014
He was buried and we went right by him.

00:50:57.836 --> 00:50:59.496
I would tell the police officers:

00:51:01.346 --> 00:51:02.987
\"At some point, he is coming...

00:51:04.176 --> 00:51:09.146
... at some point, he is going
to come out to hunt\".