Protecting the real-life Paddington

Although they inspired the world’s most well-known fictional bear, we actually know very little about the real-life Andean bears of Peru. The only bear species in South America, they are an iconic flagship species in their region; remaining shy, elusive and much understudied.

Yet, a comprehensive understanding of their behaviour remains the key to preventing their disappearance. Agricultural expansion, illegal poaching and climate change have caused the bears to lose much of their natural habitat, forcing them into unfamiliar territories and increasing human-bear conflict. 

Through our partnership with the Connected Conservation Foundation (CCF), we have provided very high-resolution satellite imagery, supporting local conservation NGO Conservación Amazónica in better understanding the bears’ behaviour within their habitat to inform their work with local communities on practical strategies to protect them. CCF also provides technical support, funding and data analysis to Conservación Amazónica.

The Andean bear: Struggling for survival in a changing landscape

As in many areas of the world, forests in the Peruvian Andes are threatened by climate change. They become fragmented – patchy, isolated islands of green where once there was a flourishing, connected ecosystem. Without enough space for nature, species become hemmed in and unable to interbreed, harming their gene pools, increasing their vulnerability to disease, and exposing them to new threats. 

In the Kosñipata-Carabaya region of Peru, Andean bears navigate a landscape increasingly shaped by habitat change and fragmentation. Like Paddington, the bears are smart, resourceful, and widely considered to be the least aggressive bear species to humans. Unfortunately, however, as they have come into closer contact with local communities, conflicts with livestock have occurred in some areas. 

Local accounts have reported unusual behaviours involving bears hiding in trees at the top of cliffs, where they wait to push livestock off the edges and go to the bottom to eat them. Understandably, farming families – themselves struggling to adapt to the changing climate – can react badly to these encounters, threatening human-bear coexistence.

A groundbreaking conservation technology solution

Conservación Amazónica won the Airbus Foundation-backed CCF Satellites for Biodiversity Award with their proposal to help meet this challenge. Their submission involved integrating Airbus Pléiades Neo satellite imagery, featuring 30cm resolution and further refined by AI-driven HD15 algorithms, with ground-level movement ecology (the field that studies the way animals move across a physical landscape on the ground). In this innovative project, Conservación Amazónica and CCF worked together to overlay Very High Resolution (VHR) data with GPS collar tracking from six Andean bears across 953 km² of the Manu Biosphere Reserve.

“This high-resolution satellite imagery and funding have greatly enhanced our mapping capabilities, directly aiding in the protection of Andean bear habitats”, says Ruthmery Pillco Huarcaya, Conservación Amazónica’s Wildlife Biologist. The precision analysis has enabled researchers like Ruthmery to track the bears’ movement from 200m up to 4,000m above sea level, directly from space, identifying minute landscape features, such as the specific bromeliad plants the bears feed on.  

Critically, by overlapping these data layers with human behaviours, they could generate knowledge and insights for use in community engagement programmes. For example, conflict-hotspot maps could show where and when encounters are most common, enabling strategies for smarter land management and a safer environment for bears and humans alike. 

As of summer 2026, the project is still in progress. As the research continues, preliminary insights from the mapping suggest potential approaches that could help reduce human-bear conflict. These include avoiding grazing livestock around riverbeds in the evening, when bears come out to drink, and making seasonal adjustments, such as strengthening measures to protect livestock during dry or rainy seasons, depending on when the bears are most active. These potential applications will be further assessed as the analysis progresses. 

Building capacity with the Connected Conservation Foundation and Conservación Amazónica

The Andean Bears project is a powerful example of multi-organisational, locally-led environmental action. To support self-reliance and embed long-term change, a key aspect of the collaboration has been building local capacity. 

With hands-on support from CCF’s Geographic Information System (GIS) & Data Science Specialist, Japheth Kimeu (a position co-funded by the Airbus Foundation), Conservación Amazónica has strengthened its competency in areas such as Pleiades Neo image analysis, the application of off-the-shelf classification algorithms and tuning parameters to improve accuracy. 

As Sophie Maxwell explains, “GIS analysts and field analysts are new, skilled roles that are becoming a vital part of all conservation teams around the world – because you need to understand the health, functional diversity and condition of your ecosystem over time”. 

The multiplier effect: Creating worldwide access to innovative conservation methods

As with all Satellite for Biodiversity award winners like Conservación Amazónica, the main platform for sharing project insights is the CCF Ecosystems Insights Hub. It serves as a catalyst for harnessing aerospace technology and know-how to scale widespread positive environmental impact.

Structured around UN ecosystem indicators, the Hub is becoming an increasingly valuable resource for conservation organisations, attracting up to 1,600 monthly users. It’s a place to discover and replicate new, field-tested methods – and to avoid costly duplication as access to funding becomes increasingly challenging.  

The Andean bears entry contains a detailed scientific write-up, open to any organisation that wants to apply the learnings to their own project. Japheth describes the method’s growing influence: “The core analytical framework was carried over from an earlier project with Elephant-Human Relations Aid, a Namibian nonprofit, that mitigated human-elephant conflicts. Since its application with Andean bears, the same methodology has been replicated in the Maasai Mara in Kenya through the Mara Elephant Project, where we have mapped corridors over 5 years.”

Conservación Amazónica has also been sharing the Andean bear findings in technical and stakeholder spaces, including an ACCA and SERFOR (National Forest and Wildlife Service) four-day workshop at Wayqecha Biological Station to review progress and future planning relating to Peru’s National Andean Bear Conservation Plan (2016–2026). 

The bears also featured at the WILDLABS International Conservation Technology Conference in Lima in February 2026. Bringing together conservation practitioners, researchers, technology specialists, government representatives, funders and Indigenous Peoples and local communities, it was a valuable opportunity to share lessons from the use of technology in conservation.

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As millions of people continue to enjoy Paddington’s adventures with the Brown family in England, there’s a quieter but fast-growing story of humans’ relationships with real-life bears in his home country. All thanks to an innovative, locally led project that brings together cutting-edge aerospace technology, pioneering conservation approaches, and the resilience of communities at the frontier of the climate crisis.