Fernando Ayerbe

During his university years, he worked as a monitor of the Bird collection at the Natural History Museum of the University of Cauca and made several scientific publications on birds of Colombia. Since completing his undergraduate degree in 2008, he has worked as an associate researcher for the Colombia program of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in bird research and conservation projects in various regions of the country.

Through WCS-Colombia, Fernando worked on the publication of the bird guides Tangara de Colombia, Colibríes de Colombia, Guía ilustrada de la Avifauna Colombiana (two editions), and An Illustrated Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia. As an independent publisher, through his Avifauna Colombiana brand, he has produced the books Guía Ilustrada de la Avifauna de La Macarena (Meta), Guía Ilustrada de la Avifauna Colombiana-third edition, Colibríes de Colombia-second edition, and Guía Ilustrada de la Avifauna de Mesetas (Meta), as well as various regional brochures and posters. His interest is to publish information through educational tools that help protect and understand the biodiversity of Colombia, as well as highlight the high value of the knowledge that Colombians have about birds in all regions of the country.

During the twelfth Congress of Birdwatching, in Manizales, Fernando will talk about how illustrated guides of local birds are produced and their use as tools to rescue local knowledge in Colombia. The local guides of Colombian Birdlife are tools with which all people of all ages can deepen their knowledge of the biodiversity of their territory, either for educational or conservation projects, or to be able to offer a nature tourism product. This is an exercise that unites external and local academic components around birds, an initiative that has important and little-known contributions for each region.