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See NPC’s Yellow Tailed Woolly Monkey Conservation Project featured on National Geographic, watch here.

The footage of the monkeys was shot by researchers at NPC’s project field site in La Esperanza Peru and the interviews made in Lima 2008.

Successful bear rescue by wildlife authorities

INRENA (Peruvian Environmental Authority) and the public prosecutor for the environment confiscated an Andean bear from a wildlife dealer in Amazonas. The man was transporting the bear in a small wooden box. Concerned onlookers, noticing there was an animal in the box, called the authorities who acted quickly to confiscate the bear. The bear, which is about one year old, was taken the same night to Chaparri, a communal reserve in the North of Peru where they rescue, release and protect Andean bears.

The people involved were arrested and face a stiff sentence including up to several years in jail, according to newly amended Peruvian laws. As we were in the area at the time we went to see the bear and offer our help. We were very happy to see that the authorities were doing a great job throughout the action, so we just wished the bear good luck on his way to the rescue center and said our goodbyes.

Visiting Wawan

Wawan, the yellow tailed woolly monkey that we rescued last December, is doing great at the IKAMA Peru rescue center. She is now almost one year old, and very attached to her adoptive mother, Helene. She is in good health, eating a lot and is always very happy to play with the other young monkeys at the center.

Since the capture of Wawan, we haven’t heard of any other yellow tailed woolly monkey hunted in the area, which is good news, and we are hoping that it will continue.

Reforestation

Reforestation work is going great, more and more people and communities are coming to us to ask for help to start new reforestation projects. Children from La Florida school made a special project in which they planted all the trees that they were growing in their school nursery, initiated by NPC. They also brought another 1000 trees, ready to plant, from Peruvian NGO ECOAN which has a nursery in the area. The children were very enthusiastic and argued about who could plant the most trees. Each child is responsible for all the trees they planted and they go to check on them daily.   

Our latest newsletter, No 7 - April 2009, is now published. Click here to download it.

NPC is proud to announce that we are 1 year old!   22^nd June 2008 was the first anniversary since we legally registered the organization.

The past year has been a challenge but everyone rose to it and there have been many achievements we wish to highlight:

• Noga and Sam have built a strong relationship with the communities of La Esperanza who donated office and living space to NPC.

• We successfully created native tree nurseries for reforestation and we will be planting these at the beginning of the next rainy season later in 2008.

• A census of mammals focusing on the Yellow Tailed Woolly Monkey has begun in the area of La Esperanza where we are hoping to create a reserve.

• The Ronda of the Amazonas district signed an agreement that from now on all hunting of animals for pleasure and for trade is prohibited.

• NPC is supporting the creation of a 2000 ha forest reserve in the community of Corosha.

• Environmental Education campaigns in San Martin, Amazonas and Lima have been set up and are being run by Yunkawasi with funding through NPC.

• A cooperative has been established in La Esperanza to enable the community to start selling their handicrafts and to manage funds received from tourism.

• Our first tourists arrived in La Esperanza! They were able to follow groups of Yellow Tailed Woolly Monkeys in their natural habitat and visit the nearby caves of high archaeological interest.

• Field assistants and tour guides have been trained and we are in the processing of raising funds to create a botanical garden to add to the attractions in the area.

• Our application was made to the Charity Commission to become a UK Registered Charity which we are hoping will happen this year.

• We have welcomed, Brooke, Fionn, Vicki and Sergio onboard during the past year.

NPC is in need of more funds for the following year so please do not forget our ‘donation’ button on the website if you wish to contribute to continuing this valuable work.  And please pass on our details to others.

Many thanks for your continued support!

All at NPC

 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.

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.