BY DAN FRANK
THE CATHOLIC Church has teamed up with environmentalists to save a unique species of parrot in Colombia.
Fewer than 600 yelloweared parrots are thought to survive, living in wax palms, the world’s tallest palm tree, on the misty slopes of the Colombian Andes.
For decades, fronds from the trees have been cut for Palm Sunday. Now the Church is handing out thousands of seedlings to promote the cultivation of other palms.
“We have a slogan: God pardons always, man pardons sometimes, but nature never does,” Mgr Fabian Marulanda told the Associated Press. “Every abuse of nature you pay for, sooner or later.” But it is not clear how many Colombians will listen. “We cannot expect that such a strongly held tradition will change overnight,” campaign organiser Luz Mery Cortes said.
“But if we don’t do something, the wax palm and the yellow-eared parrot will disappear from the planet.”