Peru - Das Goldhaar der Vikunjas (360° - GEO Reportage)

High in the Peruvian Andes live the vicuñas, relatives of the llama. These delicate animals were long hunted and nearly wiped out. Today, they are protected and captured solely for shearing. Their wool is unique—warm, light, and as valuable as gold. For the people in this impoverished region, the animals are their only valuable asset. And a chance for a way out of poverty. In the village of Lucanas, people have therefore begun to distribute the wool themselves. With success! 360° - GEO Reportage visited the village. A film by Roberto Lugones © 2018, License MedienKontor / ARTE Subscribe to wocomoTRAVEL: https://goo.gl/tIk2Qc Follow us on Facebook:   / wocomo   Press release: Protected by their thick wool, vicuñas, which, like their relatives llamas and alpacas, belong to the camel family, can tolerate even extreme cold of up to minus ten degrees Celsius at night. And this is not uncommon in their native Andes, between 3,500 and 5,500 meters above sea level. The soil is barren, hard on both humans and animals. Even under Inca rule, vicuñas were hunted for their wool and meat. After the Spanish conquest and long afterward, they were slaughtered, so that by the mid-1960s they were almost extinct. The countries in which the animals lived then pulled the emergency brake and signed a nature conservation convention to preserve them. Today, there are tens of thousands of animals again, most of them in Peru. Unlike in other countries like Argentina, they continue to live freely here. They are only captured by locals for shearing. The wool, finer than human hair, is more valuable than cashmere and a sought-after luxury product for high-end Western designers. Business is still booming today. What's new is that the farmers of the highlands are now getting involved. They have always known how to catch the animals. However, resourceful profiteers and poachers have always denied them their profits. The farmers of the village of Lucanas have now founded a cooperative that negotiates directly with buyers, without any annoying middlemen. This has been a resounding success and an incentive for the farmers to produce as much wool as possible. This will also be the case with the upcoming Chakku, a hunt in which the entire village participates and in which several hundred animals are rounded up using a kilometer-long rope.