Great news for Corosha: With our help the community of Corosha has won the SPDA contest for new private and communal reserves. This means they have $5000 to get specialists to research the forest and register their 2000 ha reserve. Of course we will do everything to help them and hopefully by the end of next year there will be a new reserve to help secure the future of the yellow tailed woolly monkey.

Dr. Anthony Di Fiore and PhD student Christopher Schmitt of New York Universities Molecular Anthropology department came to visit the project and see the monkeys. They also collected fecal samples, for genetic research, from the many groups they encountered, actually managing to collect more samples then expected. We are looking at ways that NYU can collaborate in the project for the future. Hopefully students will come to do thesis research here very soon.

We heard about monkeys that needed rescuing in the city of Neueva Cajamarca and went to check what was going on there. We found a terrible situation, a few ¨mini zoos¨ which had many animals kept in terrible conditions, a circus with a performing spider monkey and the market full with hundreds of wild animal parts such as tapir and bear feet, toucan beaks, dear meat and more, all of which are totally illegal in Peru.

The Nueva Cajamarca police, headed by Major Cesar Ocaña Rivero, together with INRENA from Moyobamba, headed by Cesar Navarro G. and John J. Esteban Romero, quickly agreed to cooperate in rescuing the animals. The next morning we headed out with the police and INRENA and rescued a common woolly monkey from one of the zoos and the spider monkey from the circus. Rescuing the circus monkey was especially important for us as this monkey was most probably watched by thousands of children all over Peru, all of whom could get the impression that monkeys are good as pets which in turn encourages trafficking.

The monkeys are now with IKAMA Peru and seem to be doing great. There is still a lot of work needed to stop the illegal traffic of animals in the area, as well as many other basic problems such as a shortage of rescue canters, which means that there is nowhere to put rescued animals. Also the authorities are totally un-equipped to handle confiscations. For this reason, IKAMA Peru and NPC have decided to put a big effort into working with the authorities to help with capacity building and to provide much needed equipment.

NPC was invited to participate in the Commision Ambiental Regional (Regional Environmental Commission). The committee meets once a month to discuss and find solutions the regions environmental problems.We built the forth nursery, in Miraflores, The work was made by a very big group of people and in three days of work, they made all the preparation of the nursery and filled more then 1800 bags with more then 1000 seeds and seedlings already planted in them.

Lately we have made three census trips to the Peroles field site. During the censuses we encountered yellow tailed woolly monkeys, coatis, agouti, heard pumas and capuchin monkeys and found ocelot tracks. We also saw night monkeys and groups of yellow tailed woolly monkeys out side of census walks.

The communities are ready to start receiving small amounts of tourism therefore we have started to advertise the tourist attractions in the area. people that are interested in visiting the communities (and are ready for a bit of rough conditions) are welcome to write to nogashanee@gmail.com

This month we concentrated on education work in the region with many meetings and seminars, not only in schools and colleges in the areas where we work, but also further afield in other towns and cities; including a presentation for international women’s day in which the engineer, Fanny Fernandez, gave a presentation on water conservation and Noga gave a short talk about hunting and deforestation. We also made a short film about the project which we presented at the same seminar and have since distributed to several local and regional television networks. Fanny Fernandez and Noga also gave television and radio interviews about conservation and announced the launch of the up-coming national painting competition we are hosting together with Peruvian NGO Yunkawasi.

Sam and Fanny prepared the second site for the investigation work and even managed to see a group of yellow tailed woolly monkeys one day whilst eating lunch. We also made a two day training seminar for local people interested in working with us in the investigation and as tourist guides.

The Andean night monkey (Aotus miconax) is another endemic and widely unknown species living around La Esperanza. A few days ago a local man told us that a young female that was stuck in some Eucalyptus trees next to the highway in someone’s garden. She was at least 500 metres from the next part of forest and there were 4 dogs sitting under the tree she was in. Thinking of the possible risks she would have to go through if we left her there, we decided to try to catch her. Some of the local men climbed up the trees and took photos of her; these are the first photos of this species ever to be published!!! They managed to catch her after a short while and we released her in the closest big patch of forest.

We have had many visits in the last two weeks. Wagner Guzman from IIAP (Instituto de Investigacion de la Amazonia Peruana), Lorena Durand from SPDA (Socciedad Peruana por Derecho Ambiental) and Luisa Guevara from APECO (Asosiacion Peruana por la Conservacion de la Naturaleza), came together for three days to give talks to the people in the different villages we work with. As these are very well known and respected local environmental institutions, there was high attendance to the talks and people showed a lot of interested in the idea to conserve their forests.

Cesar Bartra From INRENA came to give a talk about the laws and possible alternatives to logging. All of these people promised to visit again soon and to cooperate with the project.

Great news this month! The Monkey Sanctuary Trust in the UK agreed to give a substantial grant to the national education campaign that we are running together with Yunkawasi. This means that we can keep this project going in the provinces where it is most needed and continue to focus the media’s attention on the endangered primates of Peru.

The Ronda is a national network of locally organized communities “police” forces in areas where the national police are practically absent. And now the good part! With our encouragement and advice, the Ronda of the whole of Amazonas region has decided to outlaw -under penalty- the hunting, capture and sale of all wild animals. Out side of native communities almost all hunting is trophy hunting or for the local pet trade, so this is great step for the conservation of all species. We were interviewed for local TV and radio with the president of the regional Ronda to announce this momentous decision.

We finished the preparation of the first study site (and were able to see and hear monkeys every day of the trip) and this month we are planning to prepare the second site so we can start scientific investigation.

On the down side the level of immigration of loggers and pastoralists into the area increased dramatically this month (probably as word has spread about the plan to build a road to the furthest communities) and has already had an affect on deforestation and local wildlife. We are going to concentrate on informing the people of the importance of sustainable and organized development and growth contrary to the current situation.

The national education campaign started on the 11^th of January with a large reception held in the central office of INRENA in Lima. The ceremony was attended by 200 public and press and was opened by the director of INRENA Dr. Roberto Ángeles. The meeting was organised by Fanny Fernandez of Yunkawasi and a team of volunteers. The event was covered by many national newspapers. Some of these articles can be accessed through our projects page. 

In La Esperanza we started the environmental education program with the help of volunteers from Lima and Arequipa. They made activities with children and a talk for the adults.

Members of the communities formed, with our help, an association to promote the production and commercialization of locally produced handicrafts and tourism. The inauguration of the association, called ADESBI, was officiated by the founding resident of the community Doña Sulema Montoya.  

We got information of a captive yellow tailed woolly monkey in the neighbouring village of Buenos Aires. The monkey was a sub-adult male tied with a small chain in the middle of a room. He was very scared and was alarm calling. When we came back to rescue the monkey we noticed that he is half paralyzed and can not move his right leg and arm. The owner was willing to let us take the monkey to the IKAMA Peru rescue centre where he is now. Unfortunately, even with the very best care and attention that he gets he is unlikely to survive. This is just the latest of a long list of illegal pets that we encountered in the last few weeks. We hope that the education program will be effective in reducing this.   

On the 20^th of December we found a group of at least 8 yellow tailed woolly monkeys near La Esperanza. The authorities of La Esperanza contacted the owner of this land, and he is interested in protecting it for the monkeys. This land is connected to a communal area which the authorities have also offered to protect in the future.     We also saw the Andean night monkey (Aotus miconax) twice this month.

We had several visits this month, including Wagner Guzman from the Instituto de Investigacion de la Amazonia Peruana who gave a presentation to the authorities of the five communities. The presentation concentrated on the benefits to communities of preserving their natural resources and ways to help them manage them more sustainably.

Antonio Cervan Picon, an eco-tourism operator, also came to talk to the authorities about the possibility of developing tourism in the area. He will return to do a survey of tourism attractions in La Esperanza and may open an office to help develop tourism.

Ana Mariscal, an Ecuadorian botanist, visited the project for a week. She gave a talk about the importance of reforestation and the dangers of deforestation and gave examples from Ecuador. She also went to the forest with local guides to help identify the different tree species used in the area to make a list of local and scientific names.

The first tree nursery was built on the 22^nd of December in La Esperanza. About 30 people were involved in the cleaning, digging of the beds and fencing, but there is still a lot of work in filling the potting bags. As the schools are on vacation for the next 3 months we are planning to get the children to help in the nursery for a few days.

English lessons started on the 18th of December. There is a lot of interest, which is very pleasing. We also gave hot chocolate and Christmas cake to all our English students after our last lesson before Christmas.

We attended the IV Peruvian Congress of Ecology where Fanny Cornejo introduced the Yellow Tailed Woolly Monkey Consevation Proect to a wide audiance of Peruvian scientists.  The project was well recieved and hopefully contacts we made during the congress will help our conservation efforts in the future.

We returned to Peru in mid-october to start the main phase of the Yellow Tailed woolly monkey conservation project in La Esperanza. Together with the biologist Fanny Cornejo from the Museum of Natural History of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, our partners for this project, and Raul Bello form the Brigada de Fauna Silvestre.
We visited all five communities involved in the project and arranged meetings with the heads and members of each community and explained the project in detail. The people were interested and showed enthusiasm in cooperating with the project. The idea of reforestation with native tree species seemed to draw the most enthusiasm and many of the families have decided to join our efforts through tree nursery work as they all understand the urgent need for reforestation in the area because wood extraction is the main income in these communities. The community of La Esperanza has donated office space for the duration of the project.

Unfortunately, there are now two mining companies currently working on the lands of these communities. Due to the lack of legal advice available to the communities, agreements were signed with both companies, Corianta and Cerro de la Mina. These contracts are very exploitative for both the communities and the environment, so we are now looking for environmental agencies within Peru who could help the communities with legal advice to ensure better conditions and stricter adherence to laws and guidelines.

During the time in the communities we were able to see the Andean night monkey (Autos miconax), this species is also very rare and little studied. It is another endemic monkey to the same area as the yellow tailed woolly monkey and goes to prove the importance of
preserving this area as a refuge for rare and endngered animal and plant speceis. Finding this species near the communities is a very good sign and we are hoping to start investigations on this species as well.