Grantee Spotlight: Antonia Pérez Wagner
On the Edge Fund, Storyteller grantee spotlight
05/05/2025
What do you get when you cross the plight of the Jambato toad with a talented artist, illustrator and animator?
Pump up the Jam-bato profile! That’s what we say. Antonia, a Chilean artist, also agrees. After already producing a short animation using a collection of watercolours to bring their highly threatened story to life, Antonia is now taking one more step to raise awareness of these unique creatures.
Antonia’s work
In the Ecuadorian Andes, Jambato toads, a species of highly threatened Harlequin toad, gather at dusk—then mysteriously vanish, leaving only a pair of glowing eyes. As darkness deepens, the sky fills with ancient Incan constellations shaped like animals. From the toad-shaped constellation, familiar eyes reappear—the jambato returns to Earth, its light still alive.
Life begins anew: a female lays eggs by a river, and a tadpole, marked by river-like patterns, is born. Under the guardianship of the animals that searched for him, the young jambato grows strong. As night falls, all eyes gaze out from the mountains, reminding us that it isn’t the jambato to become a star in the sky and that we must protect those still here on Earth.
And that’s just a taster of the stories that Antonia will be covering. On the Edge will support her to create a greater appreciation for the Jambato toads, which are disappearing from the grassland where they used to live, by changing the perceptions of local communities towards amphibians, especially among young people. Antonia is taking local audiences, especially school children, on a journey to remind them how precious nature is, and they must act as guardians to bring the Jambato back.
Name:
Antonia Pérez Wagner
Country of origin:
Chile
Species of choice:
The Jambato toad (Atelopus ignescens)
Where to from here?
Catch our Animal Sensemaker episode featuring Stingless bees
In the Amazon and tropical places around the world, armies of stingless bees spend their days collecting nectar from plants and flowers across the forest. Listen here.
Back to On the Edge fund
Discover more about how you can get involved with protecting nature’s underdogs, here.
