February 2009. After seven months of negotiations and navigating legal minefields, the Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation (AWWP) organisation, owned and founded by H.E. Sheikh Saoud Bin Mohd. Bin Ali Al-Thani, has purchased Concordia Farm in Brazil.
Located in Bahia State, the 2,200 hectare Concordia Farm is within the most historically significant range of the Spix's Macaw. One of the last recorded sightings of wild Spix's Macaw was on Concordia Farm, amongst the Caraibeira trees lining a creek which flows through the property during October 2000. Concordia Farm was also the base of the Spix's Macaw field project, which operated throughout the 1990's, until completion in 2002. In 1995, the release of the only captive Spix's Macaw back into the wild, was from this location.
AWWP secured Concordia Farm for the Spix's Macaw and plans to allow it to return to a more natural state by removing domestic livestock. In the long term, we hope that this land will prove to be a valuable habitat resource for plans in the future to re-establish Spix's Macaws back to the wild.