Why Vicuña Wool Is So Expensive | So Expensive

meet the elusive pecunia whose

wool

is worth more than gold here in northern bolivia a single kilogram of this

wool

can sell for 370 dollars and once the product hits the shelves in italy a coat made of

vicu

ña wool can cost around of $35,000, but pastoral communities in the Ábalo bamboo range can only shear

vicu

ñas once every two years and, while conservation efforts have ensured that bucunas thrive in their natural habitat, this can mean a danger to the communities that corral the wild herd. So how do conservationists and local communities work together and why is the wool cut?

They produce such

expensive

vicuña wool that is extremely fine compared to other skins. The density of cunha wool is measured in microns and adult fukunia produces wool measuring 13 microns. Compared to alpaca wool of 22 to 24 microns or llama wool of around 30 microns, this ultra fine fur. It is what makes vicuña wool the most

expensive

textile in the world, but to produce fine wool like this, the first step is to capture the herd. The day of grazing begins with a traditional ceremony and then the fleet arrives. The community began to prepare. for this capture a month ago Beforehand, in addition to monitoring the herd and tracking its movement, they must construct what is called a capture shot, this acts as a herding device to move the buccaneer into a temporary enclosure once they are caught They can be properly sheared.

Their fur must be at least two and a half centimeters long for collection. In an effort to organize the grazing and conservation of the vicuña, a board of directors was created. Richard Ponciano serves as the authority of his province to host the flock. Of the cunhas is important because the breeding of camelids like alpacas is an essential way of life here in Bolivia estradion unlike alpacas, cunhas cannot be domesticated and are much more difficult to obtain, but the good news is that The herd is growing in 2019, the vicuña cow in Apple Obamba was over 12,000 and is estimated to have grown another nine percent since then, this is a surprising number given that at one point there were only around 65 cows left in this region;

The vicuñas in the Apollo Bumba or Anmi Integrated Management Natural Area are now protected and the years between shearing are completely focused on conservation, that's Umber Alberto, a technical manager who oversees 18 different communities in the areas that make bucunas happy. Managers like umber ensure that communities are equipped to produce the best possible product and therefore get the best price for their performance. Umber and other technical managers ensure that communities are equipped with mechanical cutting tools. Before 2019, cutting was done with scissors and took much longer; However, there are still scissor-using communities in the highlands where Umber and his team cannot carry their power generators no matter what they always try to send a trained entertainer. shipped to each community, this helps ensure the highest quality product and keeps the pecunias and shearers safe, for example after a health check the pecunias are returned to the wild.

Bolivia offers three types of fiber mainly to European markets: raw fiber, clean fiber and pre-carding the fiber pre-carding the fiber increases the initial cost of the product by 25% this is a process that involves manually removing the bristles from the fleece pre-cutting one or two fleeces take a full day technology in bolivia umber hopes to see further industrialization of vicuña wool industry in bolivia in the future for now this is the final stage that many residents of apollo bumba will ever see more than 90 percent of this The fiber is destined for Italy where it will be spun into designer textiles in laurel piana emiliano but nearby artisans making ahuna wool garments would like more bucuna fiber to stay locally they buy it nationally with an invoice from the state this is shared between the At least 10 artisans who can only receive two or three kilograms per year to produce a sweater with vicuña fiber requires the same amount of work as producing an alpaca sweater, but they can earn much more by selling bacunia products.

She says that the state does not allow her enough raw material to make a significant profit by selling empty products to get enough material to meet demand. Some artisans turn to the foreign black market for bocconia garments that sell locally. The product in Bolivia is that It is a far cry from the eleven thousand dollars it costs to buy a shawl of laurel piana vaccine but the vaccine industry continues to grow in Bolivia as more communities develop the skills and tools necessary to produce the fiber.