Victor Rojas, winner of the Illustrious Park Ranger category of the Carlos Ponce del Prado Conservation Award 2020.
During these 28 years, Victor has been a precursor and active promoter of ideas for the conservation of flora and fauna, as well as the proposal of new measures for the sustainable use of natural resources in Natural Protected Areas. In this long period, his incessant activity has been as appreciated and admired as his interest in sharing knowledge with children and rural communities.
A teacher by vocation and profession, Victor always harbored a great love for nature and the environment that saw him grow in experience and sensitivity. He has worked for Mother Nature and is now a reference for younger park rangers. With evident skill, he combined his vigorous training as a pedagogue and his vision of environmental conservation to develop environmental education workshops in rural communities and educational institutions. So, it was with great pleasure that he received an «Honorable Mention for his outstanding work as a park ranger» in the 2013 Carlos Ponce del Prado Award.
The work of Victor Rojas has not been reduced to a specific sector because his hobbies and curiosity have made his horizons extend far beyond what he himself would have contemplated. As a park ranger, he worked in monitoring high Andean flora and fauna, becoming one of the most important representatives and links between Sernanp and the population. From his work as a teacher, Victor works on a solid axis of environmental education for everyone. Thus, he strives every day so that his message for environmental conservation reaches and crosses adversities, such as poaching, a problem that he managed to reduce to a great extent in the Junín National Reserve. He did this by raising awareness among poachers in Lake Junín, demonstrating once again that it is our convictions that allow us to cultivate where before it seemed infertile.
Victor is, for all of the above, a precursor of environmental conservation and a great communicator of ideas. He is passionate about photography, and has recorded more than 600 species of flora and fauna in the Chacamarca Historic Sanctuary. He is also working on the book «Memories of a Park Ranger», which is expected to be published very soon. In it he has summarized and narrated the highlights of his work and experience during these 28 years, and compiled an exhaustive investigation of the wild flora and fauna of Junín and Pasco. Victor Rojas has been recognized in the Illustrious Park Ranger category of the Carlos Ponce del Prado Conservation Award 2020. Undoubtedly, he will always be a bastion of the conservation of our Natural Protected Areas..
