Shy creatures provide windfall for Andeans

The Vicuna, relative of the llama, thrives in the Peruvian Andes

By Claire Marshall in Ayacucho, central Peru

To many, the 'Golden Fleece' is just a story in Greek mythology, but for the peasant farmers in the central highlands of Peru, it is an important commercial reality.

Through an innovative conservation programme, impoverished Andean communities are being allowed to benefit from the sale of the fur of the shy and graceful vicuņa.

The Inca king presides over the shearing ceremony

The rare fibre from the animals makes the world's finest, warmest wool.

An ancient Inca festival has been revived and adapted to form the central part of a scheme to manage the herds.

Long before dawn, on a day in late June, people from all over the region gather at a national reserve in the department of Ayacucho, for the modern-day version of the chaku.

Shearing ceremony

Vicuna facts

160,000 now live in Peru, compared to 5,000 in 1970

Other camelid family members: the llama and the alpaca

Wool has been used in garments since 4,000BC

Vicuna scarf sells for about $350; an overcoat is worth $10,000

Two-thousand men form a human chain to round up the wild vicuņas, in preparation for their symbolic shearing.

Fifteen-hundred of the startled animals are caught in a pen, and the "Inca King," dressed in all his finery, arrives to bless the ceremony.

He says a prayer in Quechua, the language of the indigenous people. He then tastes blood taken from the two best animals.

It is usually extracted from a slit made in the living animal's ear.

The shearing can then begin. The hair that is clipped is even lighter than cashmere, and has a price to beat it.

One kilogram of raw fleece, which it takes five animals to produce, costs about $390.

The vicuna was declared an endangered species in 1974.

Poachers in pursuit of its valuable coat shot whole family groups with such deadly efficiency that fewer than 8,000 existed throughout the Andes.

100% vicuna: Trademark on a scarf in a shop

The amount of illegal hunting has dramatically decreased since the chaku was started in 1993.

By involving the people from this impoverished mountain region in the capture, shearing and marketing of the fur, they are given a financial interest in keeping the vicunas safe from poachers.

Only garments marked with the "Vicuņandes" trademark are legal.

It guarantees that the animal was captured and sheared live, to be returned to the wild for two years, before being rounded up again.

With profits from the sale of the fleeces reinvested in the local community, it looks like a golden future for the treasured vicuņa.