The government tightly controls guano extraction, and the Chinches are federally protected as they’re part of the Guano Islands, Isles, and Capes National Reserve System. In order to avoid stressing the birds, workers don’t use loud machinery or stay on any one island too long, says Benavides. Today there are safeguards in place to help prevent wiping out the resource or upsetting the birds. “Peru is very rich in natural resources, but we have been very poor in how we manage them,” Benavides says.ĭemand picked up again several years ago, due to a combination of the rising cost of synthetic fertilizers and farmers' growing interest in organic options. These days, it’s a few feet deep in most places. Extraction quickly ate away at the deposits from 1840 to 1870 an estimate 12 million tons were removed. When Peruvians first started harvesting guano more than a century ago, the hard-packed dung was up to 200 feet deep. Throughout the 1800s the brown gold was in global demand for fertilizer and explosives later that century, the resource became so valuable that two wars broke out over possession of the islands, with Spain, Bolivia, and Chile vying for them. The islands were first discovered by the Incas, who recognized guano’s benefits for agriculture. Peru is the world’s largest producer of guano more than 21,000 tons are harvested from the Chinchas alone each year, says Benavides. Some 4 million birds call Peru's islands home, and most of the guano comes from Guanay Cormorants, Peruvian Pelicans, and Peruvian Boobies, according to the IUCN. While pelicans and boobies have stable populations, the IUCN lists the cormorant as near-threatened. The dung-and the industry that extracts it-is what drew Benavides to visit multiple islands, including Macabi and the Chinchas, which are part of 22 small islands off Peru's coast. “Everything smells of guano,” recalls the Peruvian photographer. Hundreds of birds swirled over the dusty brown pancake of land, and the cacophony of their calls cut through the roar of the motor. As Ernesto Benavides’s boat neared a small island off the coast of Peru, it quickly became clear that he was entering an avian domain.
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