Story Highlights
- The last remaining 6,000 tití monkeys live in isolated patches of Colombia's dry forest at risk of total deforestation.
- The monkeys are also victims of poaching.
- The Nature Conservancy and partners are working with local ranchers to protect the remaining forest for sustainable livelihoods...and the monkeys.
By Matt Miller
Neighboring ranchers here in northern Colombia believe, quite frankly, that the property where I’m standing is a mess: There are too many trees and way too many vines. It’s too messy. Too unkempt.
Too…wild.
The world's remaining 6,000 tití monkeys don’t agree with that view. For them, this tropical dry forest — with its towering trees and jungle vines — is one of their last hopes.
That’s why The Nature Conservancy is working with a local partner organization and ranchers to reduce poaching, protect the remaining forest and connect the isolated patches of forest that the tití monkeys call home.
A Unique Industry to Stop Monkey Trouble
Tití monkeys — also known as cotton-top tamarins — live only in the tropical dry forest of Colombia. On this day, I’m radio tracking them with biologists in a patch of forest just two hours from the historic coastal city of Cartagena.
Let’s dispense with the scientific objectivity and get right to it: These monkeys are almost impossibly cute, with their big eyes and shock of puffy white hair that recalls mad scientists. Cotton tops.
They move in rapid bursts, only to suddenly pause and look you straight in the eye. Our group of conservationists and biologists frequently smile, even though most have seen the monkeys dozens of times.
But when it comes to the larger picture of the tití monkey, there’s not much to smile about. They’re losing their remaining homes, fast.
People in the surrounding communities often cut trees or hunt or catch monkeys to sell to the biomedical and pet trades as a source of income.
Conservancy partner Proyecto Tití, an organization dedicated to conserving the monkeys, helped to address this issue by building a unique industry among local communities. Villagers collect plastic bags from homes, cut them and weave them into beautiful mochila bags that are sold online and at zoos like Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
The resulting eco-mochila bag sales have changed the lives of communities, providing meaningful employment, better schools and better sanitation, and it has ended the poaching of titís in that area.
Protecting and Connecting a Shrinking Habitat
But the monkeys face another problem. Two years ago, Proyecto Tití used satellites to map the remaining Colombian dry forest. The picture was bleak: Only about 123,000 acres remained.
It gets worse. When Conservancy scientists examined the satellite data on the ground, they found that, in reality, there was much less than even the satellites estimated. In 2007, ecologists verified 68 remaining patches of forest, each of just 200 to 250 acres.
Fortunately, there are still some beautiful patches left. One of the best is the one I’m visiting, a ranch named El Ceibal. After learning about the monkeys from Proyecto Tití, the ranch owners and managers agreed to stop clearing land. They believed their cattle operation could exist alongside the forest and its wildlife.
Unfortunately, many ranchers still believe that an uncleared forest is a sign of sloppiness. Small patches like El Ceibal are not enough for titís. They become, in essence, islands. They can’t move through the cleared areas, due to their reliance on trees. There is no new blood, which can lead to inbreeding and a higher susceptibility to diseases.
There’s another patch of protected forest just a mile away from El Ceibal. A connection between them would bring together two of the best remaining tracts of forest and populations of monkey.
That’s why the Conservancy is working with landowners to link these patches of forest, here and elsewhere in Colombia. Working with landowners on voluntary agreements, the forest would be restored — allowing the monkeys to move freely from one location to another.
The Conservancy is also working with ranchers to develop methods to have more productive cattle operations on fewer acres. For instance, in exchange for the Conservancy’s assistance in planting more nutritious grasses and supplying mineral blocks so cattle gain weight and have more successful calf births, a rancher would set aside part of his land for forests.
“We cannot just ask cattle ranchers to set aside their land for conservation,” says Jaime Erazo, private lands coordinator for the Conservancy’s Northern Tropical Andes program. “They need an economic incentive. By making their livestock operations more productive, we in turn can protect more acres of forest for monkeys and other wildlife.”
Reaching a Sustainable Solution for All
The Conservancy and its partners will continue to work with ranchers and villagers so they don’t have to cut down trees or kill these animals — so they can earn a living and provide for their families without destroying their homes.
Time may be of the essence to ensure the survival of the cotton-top tamarin, but with this spirit of collaboration, there could be a bright future — for the monkeys, for local people, and for the tropical dry forest, in all its messy, wild glory.
Matt Miller is director of communications for The Nature Conservancy in Idaho. Read more of his writing on the Conservancy's blog, Cool Green Science.
(March 2009)
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Bridget Besaw (Cotton-Top Tamarin); Photo © Bridget Besaw (Kapok tree); Photo © Douglas Steakley (Coastal Live Oaks, California). Photo © Diego Ochoa/TNC (Cotton-top tamarin)
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