Sara Bennet:

Sitting on a log in a clearing in the jungle where the Matamata River meets the Colombian Amazon, Sara Bennett is like a teacher giving a lesson. Her students are not only us – half a dozen people – but also apes who seem to listen to what Sara says about her work.

A craftycappuccinohas managed to unzip my backpack and remove the cables from the recorder, while a young manmono lanudo o churucoexamine my hat as if it were the most interesting object he has seen that day. It looks like a dark gray teddy. Hunting and deforestation have placed their fellows on the list of the most threatened in Colombia. At least eight other monkeys of various species and sizes inspect in a similar way to the rest of the entourage, when they are not clowning around on tree trunks, swinging between branches, or playing with rocks and sticks.

“These animals are orphans or have been confiscated from illegal vendors for about five years,” says Bennett in good Spanish, cradling a young man.red howlerthat eagerly grabs her neck. Meanwhile, two other specimens crawl up his legs.

The passion and purposeful attitude of this petite 60-year-old is reminiscent of Jane Goodall. But unlike the famous chimpanzee expert, Bennett, PhD in Biology from Dartmouth College in the US, is not interested in purely scientific studies. Theirs is the integration of the conservation and protection of monkeys with the needs of indigenous societies that inhabit the interior and the environment of theAmacayacu National Park, almost 300,000 hectares of virgin territory.

Although its little more than a million square kilometers represents only 0.2% of the earth’s surface, Colombia contains approximately 10% of the planet’s varieties of terrestrial plants and animals. As the famous biologist EO Wilson wrote, “The biodiversity of that country is brutal.” The vast southern Amazon region encompasses a significant percentage of this natural wealth, which is lost among the foliage that flanks the river and its tributaries.

But not everything is peace and harmony. With no road access, the small town of Leticia is a couple of hours downstream from Amacayacu, so human-monkey contact is inevitable. In general, the latter have the upper hand: if they survive the encounter, they will end up in the hands of a street vendor, who offers his merchandise for just 20 euros.

OnThe House of Animals, a building built with timber seized from illegal traffic, the monkeys live free and safe. Bennett’s modest sanctuary is a cross between a research station and an educational center for tourists, who take an hour by canoe and on foot. The visits are managed by indigenous people.

“Instead of increasing the population of an existing group, we are studying the possibility ofreintroduce apes to sites where they disappeared“says Bennett, scratching the howler monkey’s jaw.” It’s about giving back to the ecosystem an important part of what it has lost. Incidentally, this would mean restoring the diversity of trees, since some monkeys are excellent seed dispersers. “In fact, they do this better than birds and bats, commonly considered large seeders.” Churucos do it especially well. ” points out Pablo Stevenson, from the University of Los Andes. For 20 years, this Colombian biologist has studied the monkeys of his country, which can add up to 30 species. For years, he carried out field work in the Sierra de la Macarena, a biological caldera where primates are more abundant than in the Amazon itself.

There he had the opportunity to study the woolly ones, which feed on the fruits of around 200 plant species. “In that region of Macarena, a community of between 30 and 50 churucos disperse one million seeds per square kilometer per day,” he explains by phone from Bogotá. “In other words, they spread about a third of all the plant seeds in the area. This is very interesting because there are six other species of primates and more than a hundred birds that help the process. My hypothesis is that both the Woolly monkeys like spider monkeys are largely responsible for the diversity of trees and plants in their ecosystems. “

This naturalist also believes that, unlike other Platyrhines – new world monkeys – thechurucos incorporate insects into their diet. The varied diet makes it possible to form tribal societies in a confined space without having a negative impact on their resources. Another hot topic is determining how many species of woolly monkeys there are, something zoologists are tackling with molecular studies. “If there are several, some populations are more in danger than others. To conserve them, the first step is to identify them.”

For these reasons, both Bennett and Stevenson have made churucos – known in Colombia for the churuk churuk they emit to call themselves – their favorite monkeys. In Bennett’s case, another personal reason must be added. “The woolly monkey Nomi, which in the indigenous language of the region means younger sister, was a kind of ambassador to the indigenous communities of my first camp in the Colombian department of Vaupés.

One night at four in the morning I heard a bloodcurdling scream and ran out. I saw that a puma had her by the head and was leading her towards the mountain. The cat must have been startled by the light from my flashlight and released it. I don’t know how she survived, “Bennett tells me. But the story didn’t end here:” On another occasion she was caught by a harpy eagle. When he released her, Nomi had head injuries and was paralyzed. The veterinarians in Bogotá were in favor of euthanizing her, but I came to work in Amacayacu and brought Nomi with me. He climbed trees again, although two years later he died of a heart attack. Then another little churuca arrived, which I carried everywhere in my backpack. We baptized it as the portable mica, and it helped me work with the six indigenous communities to which I was dedicated then. “

In reality, the monkeys were part of a micro-experiment within a larger program to get indigenous people to manage their natural resources. “For example, some time ago we undertook a project that took into account the complexity of the relationship between the Amazon River and the lakes. One of our hypotheses was that the precarious local fishing would improve if they stopped using very fine nets in streams or streams. . And instead of just doing scientific measurements in the lakes, I got the local people involved. Women, for example, checked to see if the fish carried eggs. People wanted to do something about it, and their involvement led to the leaders the community banned this fishing technique. “

But Bennett stopped having financial support from the Colombian government. Now, its program for the reintroduction of churucos, supported by several organizations, has less funds. “First we have to see if it works here, in the Amazon. Then, we could think about releasing specimens in other areas of the interior of the country. For this we need money, but when we say that it takes 70,000 euros a year to follow five monkeys through the jungle, they are shocked. But this amount only covers people’s salaries and some binoculars. ” If studying a monkey in any part of the world is difficult, doing it in Colombia is triply complicated. The unstable situation in the country turns scientific outings into Russian roulettes, although the Amacayacu region is relatively safe. The FARC guerrilla group ended, for example, Bennett’s first camp in Vaupés. “Although things have improved, we are far from being able to bring in students or set up a permanent station,” says Stevenson. “A few weeks ago, in Macarena, a group was working with alligators when a shooting broke out. They left. Working in Colombia requires a lot of passion.”

This is a passion that Sara Bennett has to spare. Three months after my visit, he sent me this email: “I have great news: the male Parce became independent in March. Surba, the oldest churuca, joined him, returned home for a while and then returned to his side . Last week we found them together. They looked great. Surba came to see us in the canoe. It was a much more elegant solution than any other we had planned! So we are very satisfied … and looking forward to the arrival of two other churucos that they confiscated in the city of Armenia. These monkeys are as beautiful and valuable as a Picasso or a Rembrandt. And I will continue to take them in … Now they are part of my herd. “

Angela Posada-Swafford