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Highways, Monkeys, and Human Collaboration

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Michel Lulo Primate Conservation April 14, 2025 Highways, Monkeys, and Human Collaboration Image by Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute In Brazil’s Amazon, a creative partnership between the Reconecta Project and the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous people is showing that saving wildlife doesn’t have to come at the expense of local communities. Together, they’ve installed 30 canopy bridges over a major highway to help primates like the golden-handed tamarin and robust capuchin cross safely without being hit by vehicles, a major cause of death for these animals. What’s powerful about this project isn’t just the number of animals helped (though that’s impressive too). It’s the way local Indigenous knowledge was placed at the center. The Waimiri-Atroari helped identify key crossing points based on their lifelong understanding of the forest. That kind of collaboration reminded me of the Hutton reading, which challenged the idea that top-down conservation (like fortress...
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Leucistic Langurs and the Allure of the Rare: Conservation Through Spectacle

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  Image courtesy of Kithsiri Ranawana. In the forests near Lankagama, on the edge of Sri Lanka’s Sinharaja Forest Reserve, a group of purple-faced langurs with leucism, a partial lack of pigment, has become a symbol of how unusual wildlife traits can inspire both cultural fascination and conservation action. Long rooted in local folklore as ghostly omens, these langurs have recently drawn ecotourists and researchers alike, transforming Lankagama into a conservation hub. This is a rare example of a typically conflict-prone species—monkeys often labeled as crop-raiding pests—being reimagined as ecological and economic assets. The Wildlife Conservation Society of Galle has capitalized on this momentum, establishing a research center and even improving local infrastructure. This case highlights a broader conservation psychology trend discussed in our course: how human perceptions of wildlife—especially visually distinct individuals—can drastically affect conservation outcomes. As with...
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Seagrass Giants: What Dugongs Teach Us About Conservation's Fragile Web

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There is a quiet ecological crisis unfolding along Thailand’s Andaman coast. Dugongs are reclusive marine herbivores, kin to manatees, who are dying in unsettling numbers. Once emblematic of Trang’s coastal identity, they are now surfacing starved and with their rib cages collapsed. Notably, this is owed to habitat collapse. Between 2020 and 2024, up to 70% of Thailand’s seagrass meadows vanished due to coastal development, sediment runoff, and increasingly erratic tides prompted by climate change. These underwater meadows, once dense with life, have been reduced to sterile sand. Dugongs, obligate grazers of seagrass, are thus left adrift in the remnants of what once was.                                     As a consequence, they have begun migrating into unfamiliar and—most importantly—dangerous zones, confronted with the risk of boat collisions and entanglement by fishing gear. Their altered beha...
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“Green-Rated” Destruction: Mining Expansion Threatens Tapanuli Orangutan Habitat

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  Map of Martabe gold field, Sumatra, Indonesia, showing the location of the 10 alunite samples with red diamonds. Source: Muston, J., Forster, M., Alderton, C., & Lister, G. (2020). Direct dating of overprinting fluid systems in the Martabe epithermal gold deposit using highly retentive alunite.  Geochronology , 2(1), 1–14.  https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-2-1-2020 The Batang Toru Forest in North Sumatra is the only habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan ( Pongo tapanuliensis ), with fewer than 800 individuals left. Yet, Agincourt Resources, a subsidiary of Jardine Matheson, plans to expand the Martabe gold mine into this vital ecosystem—clearing over 580 hectares for infrastructure ( Jong, 2025 ). Despite this, the company received a “green” environmental rating from Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry, a label raising concerns about greenwashing—the practice of presenting harmful development as environmentally responsible (Aizawa & ...
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Living in Shared Spaces: New Study Shows How Great Apes Adapt to Humans

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 James Peng Professor Joseph Feldblum Living in Shared Spaces: New Study Shows How Great Apes Adapt to Humans A chimpanzee stealing crops from a village Across the world, human activities such as agriculture, logging, and mining are reshaping the landscapes and the forests that great apes inhabit. Because of forests being cleared for palm oil, timber, and roads, habitat fragmentation is one of the primary drivers of population decline for great apes, especially considering that they are found in developing countries. For instance, in Indonesia, orangutan habitats have been replaced by oil palm plantations. Meanwhile, mining in Africa has led to frequent unfriendly interactions between gorillas and humans. Conservationists have long warned about the consequences of habitat loss. However, Dr. Ammie K. Kalan from the University of Victoria published a study analyzing how the great ape species are changing their behavior in response to human activity.  An Orangutan shot by pa...
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Emotional Education Through Primate Photography

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Jake Frietze April 10, Blog Post 3 Emotional Education Through Primate Photography      In the article, Federico Pardo’s Unfiltered Storytelling Implores Humans to Protect Colombia’s Vanishing Primates, author Melissa Zhu recounts the experiences of photographing wild primates in the Colombia Amazon. Federico Pardo’s work gained international acclaim when his footage in a show called “Untamed Americas” won an Emmy Award. Notably, Pardo claims that his work aims to increase awareness and effort toward conservation in the Colombian wilds and the world.      To reach his audience, Pardo unveiled a city-based multimedia immersive exhibit using images and footage of primates to educate a wide audience: “I want people to see them up close, their hands, their tails, their eyes, their babies, playing, sleeping, feeding”. This learning method could be the reason why more eyes turn to conservation, highlighting the emotional connection we feel towards animals similar...
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What the Gola Project Tells Us About the Future of Primate Protection

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The Gola Rainforest National Park in eastern Sierra Leone, one of West Africa’s last tracts of intact Upper Guinean forest, is a biodiversity stronghold—home to over 60 threatened species, including western chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes verus ) and red colobus monkeys ( Piliocolobus badius ). However, decades of logging, poaching, and agricultural expansion have devastated its buffer zones, once losing over 4% of tree cover annually (1991–2016). In response, the Gola REDD+ carbon project was launched in 2013 to mitigate deforestation while supporting local livelihoods. One standout initiative is the promotion of shade-grown, forest-friendly cacao. Cultivated under native trees like iroko and Ivory Coast almond, these agroforestry systems offer a critical compromise: protecting primate habitat while boosting rural income. As of 2020, 2,587 farmers were cultivating over 2,000 hectares of cacao, producing 44 metric tons annually. Remarkably, these plantations harbor over 140 bird species ...
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