Human Dimensions of Northern Muriqui Conservation Efforts

Vol. 2, No. 2 Ecological and Environmental Anthropology 2006

Articles

Human Dimensions of Northern Muriqui Conservation Efforts

Karen B. Strier1*, Jean P. Boubli2, Francisco B. Pontual3, and Sérgio L. Mendes4

The northern muriqui (Brachyteles hypoxanthus) is endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, and it
ranks among the most critically endangered primates in the world. Roughly 25% of the species is
found in the 957 ha forest at the Estação Biológica de Caratinga/RPPN-Feliciano Miguel Abdala,
in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The long-term research and conservation efforts at this site have received
considerable attention, and public awareness and educational campaigns about northern muriquis
have been highly effective. Nonetheless, very little about the human dimensions of these efforts
have been explicitly described. In this paper, we focus on three distinct, but interconnected
dimensions: i) the role of training Brazilian students on the research to build local capacity; ii)
the multiple levels of interactions among researchers and different spheres of the local farming
community, which have extended over time from the family that owns the farm on which the forest
is situated, to the families that work on this farm, to the farmers who live and work in the
surrounding community; and iii) the development of partnerships involving national and
international nongovernmental organizations and the Brazilian government. We conclude by
describing the synergist interactions between each of these human dimensions, which have
contributed to both the research and conservation of northern muriquis at this site. We also
consider the ways in which some of the specifics of this particular “case study” might be
applicable to other species of primates elsewhere.

KEYWORDS: Northern muriqui, Brachyteles hypoxanthus, human dimensions, primate research,
conservation, capacity building, local farmers


Introduction
The northern muriqui (Brachyteles hypoxanthus) once ranged throughout the Atlantic forest of Minas
Gerais, Espirito Santo, and southern Bahia (Aguirre, 1971). Today, there are fewer than 1,000 individuals
distributed among about a dozen populations, and the northern muriqui is considered to be one of the
most critically endangered primates in the world. International conservation efforts to increase public
awareness and protect muriquis have been underway since the late 1970s (Mittermeier, et al., 1982), and
field studies of northern muriquis are now being conducted at multiple sites (Mendes, et al., In press).
One of these sites, the Estação Biológica de Caratinga RPPN-FMA, is a 957 ha forest that today supports
some 226 muriquis, or roughly 25% of the species. An ongoing field study of one group of northern
muriquis in this forest was initiated in 1982 (Strier, 1999), and the entire population has been monitored
since 2003 (Strier, et al., 2002; 2006; Strier and Boubli, In press).

Most presentations and publications from the Muriqui Project of Caratinga have emphasized the
scientific discoveries about the monkeys’ behavioral ecology, reproduction, and demography, and how
these discoveries inform conversation efforts on their behalf. With a few exceptions (e.g., Strier, 1999,
2000; Strier and Mendes, 2003; Strier and Boubli, In press), little has been written about the human
dimensions of this field project or the vital roles these dimensions have played in establishing and
maintaining the positive synergy between basic research and conservation concerns over time (Figure 1).

1 Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.
2 Department of Anthropology, University of Aukland, New Zealand.
3 Conservation International-Brazil.
4 Department of Biological Sciences, Universidade Federal de Espirito Santo, Brazil.
* Corresponding author’s address: Department of Anthropology, 1180 Observatory Drive, UW-Madison, Madison, WI 53706;
kbstrier@wisc.edu.

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In this paper, we describe three
distinct, but interconnected human
dimensions to the project: i) the role of
training Brazilian students on the
research to build local capacity; ii) the
multiple levels of interactions between
the researchers and different layers of
the local farming community; and iii)
the development of partnerships
involving national and international
nongovernmental organizations, or
NGOs, and the Brazilian government.
All of these dimensions have occurred
within the context of public awareness
and educational campaigns, which have
involved local, regional, Brazilian, and
international news and popular media
exposés, documentary films by nearly
all of the major international companies,
and small-scale national and
international ecotourism. While the researchers have collaborated in these various educational and
outreach activities, we do not discuss them in this paper because they tend to be ubiquitous on research
projects that are centered on charismatic species located in accessible parts of the world. Instead, we
restrict our review to the human dimensions that are most unique to this primate-focused project, and that
might therefore serve as both a case study for other primatologists seeking new ways to develop the
human dimensions of their own research and conservation endeavors elsewhere.

Local Capacity Building
Many primatologists employ local people as field assistants, and the Muriqui Project of Caratinga is
no exception. From the outset we have hired local people to help with specific tasks, such as opening and
maintaining trails, and some are now
contracted to follow the muriquis on
some of the specific projects presently
underway. The multiple benefits of
these arrangements are important
because they contribute to the continuity
of the research, as well as to the local
economy through the competitive
salaries we pay, and to the ownership
that local employees feel toward the
research and conservation activities of
which they are a part.

What has distinguished this project
from the outset, however, has been our
deliberate effort to also contribute to the
training of future Brazilian scientists and
conservationists. This commitment to
building local capacity includes

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providing guidance in the field so that students can develop their own independent research projects while
participating on the long-term studies, and post-fieldwork advising to help them analyze and publish their
data for their professional advancement.

This tradition was initiated during 1983-1984, when Strier worked with a Brazilian undergraduate,
Eduardo Veado, who returned after completing his university degree in biology to administer the
Biological Station of Caratinga and its activities until 2005. From 1983 through the current (2005-2006
research year), a total of 38 Brazilian pre-doctoral students have been involved in the muriqui research
projects (Figure 2). These students have come from 14 colleges and universities in six different states.
Twenty-one have completed or are currently completing graduate degrees. Some of the original students
now hold faculty positions at Brazilian universities, and others are now employed by Brazilian
conservation NGOs or coordinating their own research projects as independent investigators. Women
account for more than 50% of all participants to date.

Compared to many other primate habitat countries, Brazil has no shortage of dedicated students
interested in primate field research and conservation. This pool of participants is a product of an
established tradition in Brazil in which scientists and conservationists have stimulated interest in field
studies of animals, including primates, and conservation through their own field research and specialized
field courses (Thiago de Mello, 1984, 1995). There has also been an active community of Brazilian and
international NGOs concerned specifically with conservation and the basic field research upon which
conservation priorities are established. Together, these traditions, which precede our own efforts on behalf
of muriquis, have sustained a highly talented pool of students from which we have been able to recruit.
Many of the original students are now actively engaged in stimulating and recruiting their own students
for other research projects on muriquis and other endangered species elsewhere in Brazil. Some have
maintained continuing commitments and have expanded the scope of the Muriqui Project of Caratinga.

Local Farming Community
Being permitted to conduct research on private land anywhere in the world is a privilege, and the
researchers on our projects have understood and respected our place as visitors in the area from the start.
Interactions between our research groups and members of the local farming community have occurred at
multiple levels, which have expanded in scope over time (Figure 3). This radiation of contact reflects a
combination of the particular conditions
of this forest, which is privately owned
and situated within the boundaries of the
owner’s farm, and surrounded by other
private farms and ranches. It also
reflects changes in the logistics of the
projects, such as the limited
transportation available during the early
years that restricted encounters between
researchers and local residents to those
whose homes or work on the farm
brought these two sets of people into
contact.

Initially, most research-resident
interactions were focused on the owner
of the forest and his family, and the few
local families that lived within the
farm’s boundaries and whose homes

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were located near the research house or situated along the researchers’ routes through the forest or the dirt
roads inside the farm that connect with the public roads into town. Other local residents passed the
research house and the researchers on their way to and from the coffee fields and pastures along the
perimeters of the forest. Encounters along the dirt road that bisects the central valley of the forest within
the original muriqui study group’s home range were frequent and, because everyone was on foot, there
were ample opportunities to converse. As the project expanded to include another muriqui group
occupying the northern part of the forest, and improved access to vehicles permitted researchers to
approach that part of the forest from another set of roads, the radius of researcher-resident interactions
also increased to encompass residents of other farms and ranches in the surrounding community.

Owners of the forest and farm
When the long-term muriqui study was initiated, the owner of the forest, Senhor Feliciano Miguel
Abdala, was in his early 70s, and his farm, Fazenda Montes Claros, was an active coffee plantation and
cattle ranch that employed more than 20 families who also lived within the boundaries of the farm. Sr.
Feliciano had preserved the core of the forest on his lands, and although selective logging still occurred
within its borders, the primates had been protected from hunters for decades.

Sr. Feliciano was welcoming and responsive to the first Brazilian biologists who contacted him. His
generosity extended to the Brazilian students that began to accompany their professors to the forest, and
to the international conservationists that later joined them. He was equally welcoming toward Brazilian
and foreign researchers, who he accommodated in his own farmhouse until a small vacated house at the
edge of the forest had been renovated with funds from Brazilian and international NGOs. This house,
which Sr. Feliciano dedicated to the researchers, was inaugurated as the Estação Biológica de Caratinga
(EBC) in May 1983, and the first cohort of resident researchers (including two of us, Strier and Mendes,
who was studying the brown howler monkeys at the time) moved into it the following month.

Sr. Feliciano drove past the EBC on his daily trips to and from the coffee fields and pastures at either
ends of the forest. He frequently encountered the researchers along the dirt road where our trails into the
forest originated. Most of Sr. Feliciano’s family, including his wife and sons, were based in the city of
Caratinga, about 60 km from the farm, but they often joined him for weekends and vacations, and would
accompany him during his rounds.

The EBC was supported by a combination of the daily fees that all residents paid to cover the costs of
food and maintenance, and by subsidies, in the form of grants, from various NGOs (Table 1). The EBC
employed a local woman who cooked for the researchers, and a local man who tended the vegetable
garden, maintained the house and its water supply from the forest, and assisted with various aspects of the
fieldwork. They were distantly related to one another, and between the two of them, had kinship or
marriage bonds with almost all of the other families that lived and worked on Fazenda Montes Claros.

In the 1980s, there was no electricity at the field station, and the nearest telephone was located 26 km
away in the town of Ipanema, Minas Gerais. Food and fuel for cooking and running the refrigerator were
brought in by bus when the roads were passable, or by catching a ride in the back of the milkman’s truck
when the rains had rutted up the roads. Occasionally, we caught rides into town with Sr. Feliciano or his
workers, and we counted on their help in the event of emergencies. By 1991, Strier’s muriqui research
project had purchased an old VW for local transportation, and by 1992, the Brazilian NGO Fundação
Biodiversitas arranged and paid for the installation of electricity at the house.

In 2001, a year after Sr. Feliciano passed away, his family made a dedicated commitment to
conserving their forest by transforming it into a federally-recognized private nature reserve, or Reserva
Particular do Patrimônio Natural, now known as the RPPN-Feliciano Miguel Abdala, or RPPN-FMA.

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The Abdalla family (curiously, spelled differently from Sr. Feliciano’s last name) also established an
NGO, called the Sociedade para a Preservação do Muriqui, or Preserve Muriqui, led by Sr. Feliciano’s
grandson, Ramiro Passos, to support their conservation activities. The researchers have maintained good
relationships with Sr. Feliciano’s family, and two of us (Strier and Pontual) currently serve as Research
Director and Technical Director, respectively, for the Reserve.

Table 1. Infrastructure and Research Support*.

Years
Infrastructure Support
Field Research Support
1982-1987
• Sr. Feliciano
• World Wildlife Fund
• World Wildlife Fund
• National Science Foundation
• FBCN
• Fulbright Foundation
• Fundação Biodiversitas
• Sigma Xi
• Joseph Henry Fund, National Academy
of Science
• L.S.B. Leakey Foundation
1987-1992
• Sr. Feliciano
• National Science Foundation
• World Wildlife Fund
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• FBCN
• Liz Claiborne & Art Ortenberg
• Fundação Biodiversitas
Foundation
• National Geographic Society
• Chicago Zoological Society
1992-1997
• Sr. Feliciano
• National Science Foundation
• Fundação Biodiversitas
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Liz Claiborne & Art
• Liz Claiborne & Art Ortenberg
Ortenberg Foundation (to
Foundation
E.M. Veado)
• Scott Neotropical Fund, Lincoln Park
• Conservation International
Zoo
1997-2002
• Sr. Feliciano
• National Science Foundation
• Liz Claiborne & Art
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ortenberg Foundation (to
• National Geographic Society
E.M. Veado)
• Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation
• Conservation International
• CI-Brasil
2002-present
• Conservation International
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• CI-Brasil
• Liz Claiborne & Art Ortenberg
• San Diego Zoological
Foundation
Society
• National Geographic Society
• Sociedade para a Preservação • Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation
do Muriqui
• San Diego Zoological Society
• Rufford Foundation (to C.B. Possamai)
• Primate Action Fund-CI (to C.B.
Possamai)
• PROBIO - MMA/BIRD/GEF/CNPq
*Grouped into 5-year periods for practical purposes; sources of infrastructure and research support are shown for the
general periods in which support was initiated or carried over from previous period.

Families living and working on the farm
The high level of activity on the farm when the muriqui project began meant that most of the local
residents were employed in Sr. Feliciano’s ranching activities or coffee production. It was unusual for
anyone to be idle, and people traveled within the farm almost exclusively on foot or by bicycle. The

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proximity of the research house to the dirt road that connected the local residents’ homes and the fields
and pastures where they worked created many opportunities for almost daily encounters.

The friendly relations that developed early on between the researchers and their neighbors increased
over time, and also as a consequence of both improved transportation and communication. Some of the
students also became regular participants in local community activities, which ranged from Sunday
afternoon lunches and evening soccer games, to teaching high school-level evening classes in Santo
Antonio, the nearest town located some 12 km north of the EBC. Excursions to Santo Antonio were
further stimulated by a few of the EBC researchers who chose to live there, and have increased since
telephones were installed in the town and the projects purchased cars or motorcycles to get them there. In
2003, Santo Antonio once again became a base for the researchers who were working on projects
coordinated by Boubli in the northern part of the forest.

Along with the long-term personal friendships among individual researchers and local residents, a
strong sense of mutual interdependence has also developed and grown. When a part of the forest caught
fire at the end of the dry season in 1990, many of the local men risked their lives to cut a firebreak and
ultimately brought the fire under control before it could spread beyond the 30-hectare slope that was
burning. Many of the young men who now work with the students in the forest or on the reforestation
project were small children when the muriqui project began, and have therefore matured along with us.

Neighboring community
The expansion of research to include the muriqui group inhabiting the northern-most part of the forest
extended the range of interactions among researchers and local farmers well beyond the boundaries of
Fazenda Montes Claros. The most efficient access to the northern part of the forest is from the dirt roads
that pass along its perimeter and near other farms. In fact, there are some 47 farms in the vicinity of
Fazenda Montes Claros, and several still have small pockets of forest that are directly connected and
utilized by the muriquis, or either tenuously connected to the Reserve, or else close enough for
connections to be rapidly reestablished through recovery and conservation efforts.

The idea of recovering fields and pastures to expand the area of forest available to muriquis here was
initiated in the early 1990s, when data demonstrated that the expansion of the muriqui population could
be expected to continue provided there was sufficient habitat available to them (Strier, 1993-1994). The
past-administrator of the EBC, Eduardo Veado, launched two important initiatives at this time, both of
which have subsequently been expanded with great success by Boubli and Pontual. First, Veado
commissioned a consulting firm to conduct interviews with the neighboring farmers, nearly all of whom
lamented the declining productivity of their lands, which they attributed to lack of water. Although our
daily rainfall data showed that annual rainfall in the region had not actually declined, the loss of forest
cover led to run-off and evaporation with negative impacts on local farming and ranching activities, and
may even have contributed to a lowering of the region’s water table.

Veado’s second initiative was to collect seeds of forest plants, particularly those eaten by the
muriquis, to develop a nursery that could supply seedlings for a reforestation project. In 2004, what had
been a fairly small-scale project was transformed into a 1-hectare nursery capable of producing some
100,000 seedlings per year. The nursery was situated on land loaned by one of the neighboring farmers,
and the reforestation project employed many of the young men who grew up on Fazenda Montes Claros
alongside the research base there.

The evolution of the expanded nursery and reforestation projects, as well as popular courses on
efficient husbandry, planting, and projects to protect the region’s watersheds, merit a much longer
discussion than space permits here (Boubli, et al., 2005; Pontual, et al., In prep.). What we emphasize

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here is that this much wider, community-scale participation in conservation was facilitated by both the
basic research results about the importance of increasing habitat, and the relationships that have
developed among local residents in the region and both past and present researchers.

Non-Governmental and Governmental Partnership
The research and conservation activities of the Muriqui Project of Caratinga have always relied on
support from local and international NGOs (Table 1). This support has taken many different forms over
the years, and has sometimes, but not always, involved funds to finance new or ongoing initiatives. The
most constant and critical role of the NGOs has been in providing the essential infrastructure needed to
develop our research and conservation projects at this site. This has included periodic renovations and
expansions to the research house, and improvements such as electricity and a well to insure a constant
water supply.

Many NGOs have also been involved in supporting particular research and other projects at this site,
but only a few have made long-term commitments to sustaining the mainenance of the EBC and its non-
research staff. The Fundação Brasileira para a Conservação da Natureza, (FBCN), and the World Wildlife
Fund, largely through the efforts of Russell Mittermeier, were the first NGOs with a major presence.
These NGOs were soon followed by others, including Fundação Biodiversitas, Conservation International
and Conservation International-Brasil, and the Associação Pró-EBC (ApEBC). More recently, the
Sociedade para a Preservação do Muriqui has assumed an increasingly important role in administering the
EBC and all of the research and conservation-related activities in the Reserve.

The Brazilian government has also made increasingly important contributions to research and
conservation efforts on behalf of muriquis at this site and elsewhere. In 2002, the Brazilian equivalent of
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, known as IBAMA, established a 12-member advisory committee for
the conservation of muriquis, on which two of us (Strier and Mendes) currently serve. The committee
meets annually, and has been charged with evaluating new research initiatives and management proposals
for both southern and northern muriquis, and developing a conservation management plan for these
species (Mendes et al., In press).

The Brazilian government also established a competitive fund to support conservation efforts on
behalf of endangered species. This fund was generated through The Project for the Conservation and
Sustainable Use of Biodiversity, abbreviated as PROBIO. It represents an agreement made nearly a
decade ago between the Brazilian
government, the Global Environment
Facility, and the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development. It is
linked to various departments and
secretariats of the Brazilian government,
including the General Coordinator of
Biological Diversity and the Brazilian
Research Council, or CNPq. One project
involving northern muriquis in the state
of Espirito Santo, coordinated by
Mendes, was among the proposals
approved during the first round of
funding. By the second round of
PROBIO funding, northern muriquis
were the focus of three of the 10 projects
approved. In addition to continued

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funding for the muriqui project Mendes coordinates in Espirito Santo, there were also two awards to
support work with northern muriquis in the state of Minas Gerais, including one focused at the EBC and
coordinated by Boubli. All of the PROBIO projects were run through different NGOs, which
administered the more than $140,000 each of the projects received from the Brazilian government.

Synergism across Human Dimensions
There has always been tremendous synergism across the various human dimensions that have
positively impacted research and conservation efforts associated with the Muriqui Project of Caratinga
(Figure 4). For example, the Brazilian students recruited into the research have, through their work and
friendships, stimulated interest and participation in both the research and conservation activities at the
Reserve, and together the students and local residents have facilitated the conservation efforts of Brazilian
and international NGOs and attracted support from the government. Equally important, the NGOs and
Brazilian government have facilitated conservation efforts through their support of projects aimed at the
local farming community and the research and conservation activities of the students. The mutually
beneficial interactions at all levels have helped to protect this forest and the muriquis it supports, and
provide hope for their future.

Extrapolating to Other Field Studies
We realize that some of the human dimensions in our project may be difficult to develop at other field
sites, or may require different approaches to those that we either deliberately took or that developed
during the decades that the Muriqui Project of Caratinga has been underway. For example, the existing
scientific and field-based ecological traditions in Brazil provided a reservoir of talented and interested
university and graduate level students for our project that other countries with different academic
traditions might lack. We were also fortunate that there was not a long established history of hunting
muriquis in the Reserve. This not only made it feasible to rapidly habituate the muriquis to the presence
of researchers, but also meant that the local economy was not dependent on hunted meat as it is in some
other regions of Brazil and other parts of the world. Similarly, because muriquis have never been
observed to raid the crops of local farmers the way that other species of primates often do, protecting the
muriquis did not put us in direct conflict with the subsistence or income of local people.

The private ownership of this forest, and the receptivity of Sr. Feliciano and his family to our
activities, also created an environment that was conducive to the research and conservation programs. We
did not have to negotiate with local administrators or bureaucrats as the project developed. As the Abdalla
family and their new NGO assume an increasingly vital role in these and their own conservation-related
initiatives based at the EBC and within the Reserve, we anticipate greater opportunities to simultaneously
advance the research, conserve the forest and its inhabitants, and work together to develop a sustainable
ecological community that includes local farmers and ranchers. And, by involving us in their NGO, they
have given us a voice in their decision-making processes during the current transitional period.

Other recent developments, such as the one initiated under the PROBIO project to expand the EBC
forest with the participation of neighboring farmers and ranchers (Pontual, et al., 2005, Pontual & Boubli,
In press), and an even larger scale plan being developed by Conservation International-Brasil to establish
connectivity between this forest and another forest that also supports muriquis in the town of Simonesia,
some 55 km (straight line) away, provide some examples of the ways in which conservation efforts on
behalf of northern muriquis in this region are expanding. These projects are much larger in scale, but they
will also rely on many of the same human dimensions that have contributed so directly to our research
and conservation efforts on the Muriqui Project of Caratinga.

Although the human dimensions of our research and conservation efforts have been described as
“charmed,” there have been ongoing challenges along the way. One challenge, for example, has been the

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time and thorough documentation required for the evaluation and processing of requests for renewed
research permission from the Brazilian government. Yet, the participation and sponsorship of a Brazilian
counterpart required for any foreign researcher has also stimulated the long-term and mutually productive
collaborations among us and our students, and has therefore contributed in the most positive ways to the
human dimensions of the project.

While the renewal of research permissions is an episodic challenge, the maintenance of funding for
our basic research and conservation activities is a perpetual and increasingly daunting concern. Our
operating costs have risen rapidly in recent years due to a combination of inflation, new labor laws that
affect project personnel, and the expenses associated with maintaining field vehicles necessary to access
distant parts of the forest and equipment such as the walkie talkies, GPS devices, and computers that are
now standard tools in the field. Like most of our colleagues with projects elsewhere in the world, a great
deal of our energies are devoted to securing the funds that we need to continue to our work.

Finally, as the working frontier of this long term project has expanded to include the neighboring
farms around the Reserve, new and possibly not so “charmed” challenges are expected to come along.
Although the reforestation of degraded areas seems to be a common goal to both farmers and researchers,
this is a delicate yet fundamental matter about which we are still learning how to deal (Pontual, et al., In
prep.).

Acknowledgments
We thank CNPq and the Abdalla family for permission to develop our project at the RPPN-FMA, and
the various organizations and funding agencies shown in Table 1 for their support over the years. We are
grateful to Agustin Fuentes, Fred Anapol, and Trudy Turner for inviting us to participate in the Wiley-
Liss Symposium at the 2005 meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, where a
version of this paper was presented. We also thank the editors of Ecological and Environmental
Anthropology and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on our manuscript.

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