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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Dozens of young people knelt under the scorching sun this week in Rio de Janeiro’s rural interior, planting a green hall that will be a long-term passage for the region’s most iconic and endangered species, the goldfish. Lion tamarin.
The 300 tree seedlings they planted this week (which are only a few centimeters long at the moment) will link two patches of forest. This is the newest in a series of environmentalist-led incremental forest expansion initiatives, offering an ever-expanding habitat for the monkey.
Until recently, the bare, dry land they were replanting belonged to a rancher who had cut down his trees to graze cattle.
Rampant deforestation over the centuries has decimated this part of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, the only place in the world where you can find this tiny coppery monkey with a silky mane framed on its face. With less than 5,000 individuals, it is an endangered species.
“One of the biggest disorders is the fragmentation of the forest,” said Luís Paulo Ferraz, executive director of the Golden Lion Marmoset Association, known by its Portuguese acronym AMLD. “Otherwise, the monkeys start mating within their own families. “
Ferraz says the monkeys are too afraid to cross the few hundred meters of bare land that separate two islands of green vegetation, for fear of falling prey to larger predators, such as felines. Hence the need for green corridors.
Sarah Darwin, Charles Darwin’s great-great-granddaughter, applauded their efforts on Friday. The British botanist has been joined by a handful of young naturalists who are retracing the boat expedition undertaken through Charles Darwin just a few hundred years ago that led to his theory of evolution, as part of a task called Darwin 200.
“He arrived in the Brazilian forest of Mata Atlántica and had a moment of clarity. . . an experience in which he felt at one with nature,” Darwin said as he entered the forest, known for its astonishing diversity of mosses, ferns and other vegetation. In the canopy above, the little golden, long-tailed monkeys were jumping from branch to branch. “One of the most shocking reports of his life,” he added.
Before colonization by the Portuguese in the 16th century, the Atlantic Forest biome covered 330 million acres (more than 500,000 square miles) near and along the Brazilian coast.
In the fast-paced Atlantic Forest region where golden lion tamarins are found, the rainforest is now 2 percent of its original size, Ferraz said.
Sugarcane and coffee plantations were the main reasons for early deforestation. Then came urban progress and the grazing of farm animals. In the 1970s, when scientists began looking to save the species, only 200 golden lion tamarins were still in the majority, according to the AMLD.
In Brazil, the animal is a symbol of wildlife preservation, even appearing on the country’s R$20 bill.
In recent times, the nonprofit scientific and conservation organization has been buying land from farmers and ranchers, who then reforested, one plot at a time. They bought a first plot of 137 hectares (339 acres) in 2018, and 180-hectare (445 acres) in November.
The procedure is time-consuming and expensive, requiring intense and normal maintenance, especially in the early years, but it is rewarding.
On the ground, the bare hills acquired through AMLD in 2018 and which they began reforesting the following year, have returned to their bright green, covered in healthy forests and inhabited by many animal species that can be detected by night vision cameras.
And despite a severe yellow fever outbreak in 2018, when the population dropped by more than 30% in a matter of months, there are now more golden lion tamarins than at any time since conservation efforts began.
According to the association’s latest survey, conducted this year, there are around 4,800 people.
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Associated Press manufacturer Diarlei Rodrigues contributed to this report.