Peru’s Poor Are Making the Best of a Hairy Situation : Agriculture: Andean subsistence farmers earn $1.3 million helping fleece and protect the once- endangered vicuna.

Some of Peru’s poorest people may be about to break free from 500 years of economic isolation with the help of an unlikely ally--the vicuna.

A sort of understated version of the better-known llama, this shy animal lives above two miles in the inhospitable Andes.It’s suddenly become a hot commodity for the very reason it was hunted to the verge of extinction in the 1960s--its long silky hair.

Vicuna fleece contains fibers so fine they make cashmere feel coarse, sporting an average diameter of 12.5 microns, compared with 15.1 microns for cashmere.

“It’s the walking gold of the Andes,” said Herbert Murillo, general manager of Condor Tips, the only company now pursuing the vicuna trade.

Unlike your average gold rush, where outsiders usually lay claim to the bulk of the riches, some of the biggest winners if the vicuna business takes off will be the isolated, indigenous villagers who share its barren habitat. In 1991, the Peruvian government awarded custody of the vicuna to 1,000 peasant communities, to provide them with a steady income and an incentive to manage and protect the threatened creatures.

Until now, most of these communities of subsistence farmers were physically and economically cut off from the rest of Peru, with little or no access to paved roads, electricity or telephones.

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The vicuna could help change all that, said Ronny Garibay, head of the Agriculture Ministry’s project to develop Peru’s vicuna and alpaca resources.

That the vicuna’s fleece is fetching is indisputable. At an auction last year, it went for $700 per kilogram. Not bad, considering each vicuna bears about 250 grams of fiber.

The first 2,000 kilos of fleece were put out for international bid last year by the Vicuna Breeders Assn. Condor Tips SA, a unit of Peru’s Grupo Inca, won the competition in association with two Italian textile companies, Loro Piana and Laneria Angonne.

The contract earned the peasant communities $1.3 million, and they could reap an additional $500,000 when the finished products are sold.

The Italians will profit with the sale of vicuna-cloth suits, assuming, of course, that they can find enough people prepared to pay the $6,000 to $12,000 price tag.

Raising vicuna isn’t exactly an arduous business, nor a new one. For most of the year, they’re left free to roam the high sierra in small family groups, avoiding any contact with people. Then every spring and summer, they’re chased down from their mountain retreats to the plains, where huge nets funnel them into corrals.

The ceremony dates back to pre-Columbian days when only the Inca royalty were allowed to dress in vicuna garments. Common folk caught garbed in the royal fleece were put to death.

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Vicunas fared little better than the Incas during the 16-century Spanish invasion. Much of their range was overrun by European farm animals, including cattle and sheep.

Eventually the population grew so small that international rules made it illegal to own a vicuna or trade in its fleece.

Instead, the restrictions spawned a small army of poachers who killed the animals and shipped their skins to Europe. By the mid-1960s, when the vicuna was added to the endangered species list, its numbers had dwindled to 5,000. Since then, the creature has staged an impressive comeback, its numbers swelling to 66,000 in 1994.

Still, the rebound helped Peru last year convince member nations of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species that the animal could be more effectively protected if trade in vicuna fleeces from live animals were legalized.

The vicuna will, in effect, help fund their own revival. Of the $1.8 million taken in at the first fleece auction, 30% must go for species protection.

Peruvian officials say the program is already paying off. Vicuna numbers have probably risen 20% since 1994, said Garibay at the Agriculture Ministry. However, poaching remains a threat. Just this month, 100 vicuna carcasses were found in a remote stretch of Lima province. They’d been shot and skinned two weeks earlier.

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Whether the vicuna are profiting from the program, the villagers clearly have scored gains. San Diego de Bago, a village of 300 families in the province of Ayacucho, bought a generator, providing light to homes and streets for the first time.

Whether super-expensive vicuna suits will profitably catch on remains to be seen. Condor Tips produced 1,800 meters of silky cloth this year from the fleeces it bought at auction. Its Italian partners are now transforming the cloth into luxury garments.

The end product won’t be 100% vicuna wool, since the fine fibers break in weaving machines. Condor Tips was forced to blend in 10% wool, though the company is trying to build machines that can handle pure vicuna.

“It’s not a moneymaker for us yet,” said Condor Tips’ Murillo. “A lot of money needs to be invested in the peasant communities, and we suspect there is still a stock of poached animal skins abroad to feed the market for a while.”