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Last week I went to Parque Amacayacu for a field trip with three former Oxford Brookes conservation students, an ethno-botanist and three indigenous guides. The trip is part of the Proyecto Churuco, or Woolly Monkey Project (see link). These are some of the incredible things I have learnt on my trip into an awe inspiring place. (Photo gallery below)
THE PEOPLE
The park is inhabited by the Tikuna tribe. Traditionally the Tikuna settlements consisted of a single building that housed the entire community. This was relocated every 5 -10 years. Today they live in permanent settlements of separate dwellings as part of a deal with the government. As the area is a national park, the authorities insist that they remain fixed so they can be counted, issued with cedular ID cards and their have their hunting regulated. In return they receive free healthcare and education. The effect on the survival of their traditions has been large. There are fewer and fewer Tikuna speakers left and the population is soaring along with the westernisation of their lifestyles. Picture: Many of the homes are built on stilts or float on logs. The Amazon River floods regularly.
According to tribal beliefs, the most powerful spirit in the jungle is Curipira. Curipira must be respected as it can control the fortunes of those who behave or misbehave. Our guide Francisco told us the story of a hunter whose children wept for hunger as he could find no food. Then one day Curipira appeared to him and led him to a secret farm with an abundance of all kinds of food, though Curipira swore him to secrecy. For years he fed is family from his sectret garden until his friend took him to get drunk. Foolishly he told his secret and the garden disappeared. Whilst eating lunch I was told by another guide Don Pio that there is an underworld; a parallel universe where people sniff food rather than eat it as they have no anuses.
The villagers are highly skilled hunter gatherers. Park rules allow that they can fish, hunt and log on a subsistance level only. Within the park, comercial exploitation of trees and wildlife is forbidden. Beyond the park I am told that logging quotas are often flouted by corrupt private business interests, indigenous leaders and local authorities.
THE PLANTS
Cirtain things strike you as unusual about the Amazon forest floor. One thing is the complete absence of and rocks or stones. It is like walking in a giant, living compost heap of rotting vegetation with new life sprouting up everywhere.
Picture: A more permanent feature of the live fast- die young vegetation are the mamouth hardwoords.
Part of the fieldwork is a census of plants in the area. This is done by covering each plant over a cirtain size within two and a half meters either side of a measuring tape. The tape extends off from a central point in 4 x 50 meter trajectories. With the help of the guides, the census records what eats the plants, their location, smell, sap and any uses. By repeating the exercise the team can get overall data on the forest flora.
Picture: The Tikuna believe that if you rub the sap from the roots of this Bariguna tree on your penis it grows in length. Legend has it that there was a man who could not please his wife. After using the Bariguna sap he grew so big that he accidentally killed her! Now it is customary to cut the root after using it so the penis does not grow too big. In Bolivia the tree is known as ¨the widows friend¨.
The Tikuna have a holistic, interconnected approach to the forest which comprises their entire universe - materially, spiritually and medicinally. Some of the plants we came across were being used in North America to treat things such as cancer. Much of Andres work as an ethno - botanist is talking to elder tribesmen to gain as much knowledge as possible from them before it is lost forever. As he put it;
"You can´t help the people without the forest and you cant help the forest without the people".
As we were talking, some hawks went over head and our guide told us that when they hear the Tapiers call they find it and eat the parasites from its back.
"You see what I mean?¨, exclaimed Andres, ¨how could he have known that? These things are passed down through countless generations. They know it even though they have never seen it¨
Indeed the understanding of the forest, that the hunter - turned park warden guides have, is baffling. Andres believes that we have an opportunity to act now before it is too late; in a few years the loggers will stop selecting the hardwoods and just start chopping down everything.
THE MONKEYS
Sam Shanee escorting a naughty Wooley monkey from the park premises
The Woolly Monkey project is funded by a variety of organisations including WWF, Rain Forest Concern, The Royal Geographical Society, The Monkey Sanctuary Trust, The Rivett-Carnac family and OWW. Leading the project is primate conservationist Angela Maldonado and Andres Barona. Soon they hope to set up their own NGO to expend the work.
Rising with the sun we went on monkey censuses to monitor the primate populations. One morning our guide told us of the Tikuna story of the Tamarin monkey Bebe Leche (spanish for Monkey that drinks Milk). Los abuelos(the grandfathers or ancestors) say that the monkey was once a human but was an alcoholic. Now that it lives in the trees, it stays in the lower canopy as it is too drunk to swing in the higher branches with the howler monkeys. The project is gathering these stories as part of a video to show in the communities to promote conservation.
Picture: Sam noting position of a sighting and its distance from the trail.
Also working in the park are the English/Israeli couple Sam and Noga Shanee. They met at the Inti Wara Yassi refuge in Bolivia and then moved to a gibbon rehab centre in Thailand. Soon they too hope to set up their own conservation NGO down river in Peru. Sam and Noga had the first ever monkey wedding (complete with a ceremony involving gibbon calls, a forrest canopy and a zip wire). They are in fact monkeys - Shanee (which they switched to by Depoll) means gibbon in Thai.
FRONTLINE CONSERVATION
For Angela the conservation of the monkeys is as much a human process as a zoological one. The threat to the populations even from subsistence hunting is great. Persuading the Tikuna people not to hunt the Woolly Monkeys is a slow and difficult task that takes years to make even small progress.
Picture: Mural painted by Proyecto Churuco´s Ana Parathian on the school of the local Ticuna village - Mocaqua
Often the threat of hunting is highest in the more traditional isolated communities. In the villages where there is access to other work (such as tourism or labour and commerce connected to the larger towns)the threat of hunting is slight. So does this mean that ¨development¨ will bring safety to the forest fauna? As one park worker put it ¨whilst the villagers are scratching their balls in front of the T.V the do not go out and hunt¨. Andres does not think so; "They will never be like us" he remarked "they will never buy all their food from supermarkets, food comes from the forrest thats the way it works here".
The growth of this air and river bound patch of Colombia is leading to more deforestation and population increase. The tendency is to have huge families here. In the indigenous communities, over half the population are young. There are no easy answers to the problems facing this corner of the Amazon and, as is often the way, you leave more confused than when you arrive. One thing is cirtain, we have to work quickly here and involve the locals so that they have a forest left in decades to come and are prepared to fight for it.
