
The once-endangered vicuña is thriving in the Peruvian Andes - MiriamWeiner
http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20180917-the-rarest-fabric-on-earth
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angarg12
I have a Vicuna scarf and I have to say it's a luxury item I was very happy to
purchase.

The scarf itself looks and feels amazing. But best of all, every item made of
vicuna wool is numbered and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity,
that grants that the wool has been gathered in a respectful and sustainable
manner.

Some may feel sad that conservation is promoted this way, but considering how
the production of some luxury goods has a devastating impact on the
environment, this seems like a better approach.

By the way, if Vicuna is too expensive for you, but still want a sustainable
luxury item, look for Guanaco wool items.

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aarongolliver
Any chance you got it off an online store / a brand with an online presence?
My roommates and I have been looking for one we can trust.

~~~
miahi
Vicuna (except from Argentina) is still CITES Annex II, which means that the
export and re-export of the animal or any derivative must have a CITES
certificate[1]. The Argentina vicuna is marked as Annex I (commercial export
prohibited).

If the CITES DB is updated (no idea, sorry - and there's no data for 2018), in
2017 very few such trades were actually recorded[2].

I visited Peru a few years ago and there the vicuna products (retail) were
accompanied by a certificate needed to get the products through customs.

[1] [https://cites.org/eng/app/index.php](https://cites.org/eng/app/index.php)

[2]
[https://trade.cites.org/en/cites_trade/download/view_results...](https://trade.cites.org/en/cites_trade/download/view_results?filters%5Btime_range_start%5D=2017&filters%5Btime_range_end%5D=2018&filters%5Bexporters_ids%5D%5B%5D=228&filters%5Bimporters_ids%5D%5B%5D=all_imp&filters%5Bsources_ids%5D%5B%5D=all_sou&filters%5Bpurposes_ids%5D%5B%5D=all_pur&filters%5Bterms_ids%5D%5B%5D=all_ter&filters%5Btaxon_concepts_ids%5D%5B%5D=3436&filters%5Breset%5D=&filters%5Bselection_taxon%5D=taxonomic_cascade&web_disabled=&filters\[report_type\]=comptab)

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Gravityloss
Rare to read positive news.

~~~
lanestp
There is lots of positive news out there. Reforestation, garbage patch
cleanup, Great Barrier Reef improvement. I’ve started prioritizing finding
good news. Normal media channels will just get you depressed.

~~~
tyu100
Yep, we are in a sustained global economic and technological boom that's been
going on for decades. If it bleeds it leads is true of almost all news media,
it's up to you to find good sources of information. The business news is
actually a great source to prioritize as making accurate bets about the world
is the most important thing to its readership.

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ar-jan
* vicuña.

~~~
forinti
English is such a plastic language that it even imports diacritics from other
languages! Still, vicuna is also correct in English: [https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/vicuna](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/vicuna)

But I guess importing letters from different alphabets is the limit.

EDIT: Actually ñ is a letter in the Spanish alphabet, so in this case, English
has imported a foreign letter.

~~~
mc32
Note, if following old Spanish orthography one could simply spell vicuna with
a double “n” as in “vicunna” and remain accurate. The thing above the n in the
Spanish spelling of vicuna is actually a miniature “n”. So it’s a sort of
stacked n digraph.

~~~
rbonvall
That doesn't hold for modern orthography though. Two consecutive ns (e.g. in
words _innato_ and _perenne_ ) are not pronounced as ñ.

~~~
logfromblammo
Look at us arguing over English transliterated spelling rules again, as though
it actually cared how much of another language's blood it spills as it hacks
the raw, pulsing vocabulary out of their dictionary.

English will spell it as vicuna, vicuña, vicugna (like lasagna), vicunia, and
vicunya, all at the same time, and Español will sit down and enjoy it, if it
doesn't want its vowels mispronounced in an entirely new way.

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calewis
Wtf is that design, looks horrendous on a high res display. The BBC really has
lost it's way with digital design.

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ergothus
Many comments celebrate this "good news". I hate to be the downer, and I dont
want to say this article made me sad, but this is more "stopping some bad
news". That's still good, and it's better than more bad news, but true good
news is when we improve upon the norm, not when we stop one aspect of making
things worse.

It is great when we can do things like cure diseases and genetic defects and
reduce suffering, but I cant celebrate the same way when we are reducing
suffering we created through sheer stupidity.

Humans cause a lot of suffering by accident, or by dint of competing with
other species, and that sucks but isnt what I'm talking about. Cases where we
know better and do the harmful stuff anyway are the ones that really get me.
Stopping that is "good news" the way someone no longer punching me is good
news.

[Edit: "computing" -> "competing"

