Vanishing Monkeys, and Money

In the still of the early morning in the rain forest, a crash shakes the trees. Then silence.

Maurilio Cordero jerks his head up, straining to see through the canopy and shafts of sunlight that slice through the jungle like headlights in the dark. He shakes his head.

“Just a bird,” he says. “No monkey.”

Cordero, a nature guide, is searching for the titi monkey, a type of squirrel monkey found only in Costa Rica and Panama. It’s small, cute and furry -- and in danger of vanishing from the Earth.

Only 3,500 to 4,500 are left in the wild, and experts say they may become extinct in the next several decades. Their habitat is dwindling, chopped into smaller and smaller chunks by hotels, homes and businesses.

Their survival has become a test for Costa Rica, which has staked its international reputation -- and its tourism-dependent economy -- on protecting the environment.

Fifteen years after casting off the taint of Central America’s civil wars and positioning itself as a rain forest on a hill, the nation is struggling to fulfill its commitment to be a conservationist’s paradise.

Government pledges to buy land to turn into national parks remain unfulfilled. Mega-hotels are pushing to build golf courses and beach resorts next to unspoiled rain forest. Water and air pollution remain a serious problem in parts of the country.

That is not to say there is a lack of political will. More than any other recent administration, Costa Rica’s new government has put the environment at the center of its agenda, going to battle with transnational oil and mining companies.

The problem is a lack of resources. Although it is an island of prosperity and tranquillity compared with its Central American neighbors, Costa Rica still lacks the cash to pay for the country’s extensive network of social services and its ambitious environmental programs.

Conservationists are watching the nation with concern: If Costa Rica cannot find a way to balance the demands of its growing population with its strong desire to protect its environment, they worry, what hope is there for other efforts around the world to promote sustainable development?

“This is a huge issue,” said Martha Honey, a scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the author of a recent book on ecotourism. “I don’t think there’s any developing country that has moved as far as Costa Rica has in terms of making ecotourism a business that involves locals and is part of national policy.”

And yet the monkey is in trouble. There is no comprehensive government effort to save it, though it is perhaps the most recognized of Costa Rica’s endangered species and is the main attraction at the country’s most popular national park.

Instead, the monkey’s salvation depends upon the uncoordinated efforts of several small groups of concerned business owners, nonprofit organizations and citizens who are struggling to find ways to buy up habitat and educate people on the dangers the monkey faces.

Jim Damalas is president of the Assn. for the Conservation of the Titi Monkey, a group of local business owners who have banded together to protect land where the monkeys live. The group stepped in, he said, because the government simply wasn’t doing enough.

“If this symbol goes, it’s the beginning of the end,” said Damalas, owner of a hotel near this stunningly beautiful national park. “If we can’t maintain the monkey as a species, everything else will go as well.”

Costa Rica has long been at the forefront of the environmental movement, establishing some of the first national parks in Central America. More than 10% of the country has been set aside as protected habitat over the years.

During the 1980s, however, it suffered in the shadow of the Cold War conflicts that embroiled neighboring countries such as Nicaragua and El Salvador. Though Costa Rica played no major role in the fighting, visitors shunned it and the rest of the war-torn isthmus.

Then, in 1987, President Oscar Arias was given the Nobel Prize for his efforts to broker peace accords in the region. The award put Costa Rica on the map as a haven, and it flourished as a tourist destination.

Tourists began arriving in droves to take in the country’s natural beauty, from the gently rolling highlands dotted with green coffee bushes to breathtaking stretches of rain forest along its two coasts.

Suddenly, what had been a vague hope became reality: Costa Rica’s commitment to protecting the environment began paying off through ecotourism, that sector of the tourist industry that puts visitors directly in contact with nature and wildlife.

Last year, more than 1 million tourists came to Costa Rica. Tourism has become the country’s largest generator of foreign income, bringing nearly $1 billion per year. The country’s high-tech and coffee businesses, meanwhile, have been hit hard by recent declines in those industries.

When he took office this year, President Abel Pacheco quickly showed his determination to put ecotourism at the center of the country’s economic future.

He banned all new oil drilling and mining, burying the hopes of U.S. oil companies seeking to drill off the Caribbean coast and sparking a confrontation with a Canadian gold mining firm preparing to dig in northern Costa Rica.

He also has proposed a series of constitutional amendments -- the first major changes in more than 50 years -- that would force courts to consider the impact of any decision on the environment.

“Costa Rica has decided that the environment is going to be a pillar of our development,” said Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, minister of energy and the environment. “These guarantees are transcendental and important.”

While nobody questions that ecotourism has benefited the country, some doubt it can solve all of Costa Rica’s problems.

The nation is generally economically stable, but its social commitments -- including free health care and generous social security benefits -- have left it with a huge public debt, nearly equal to 50% of the country’s $15.9-billion gross domestic product.

This year, there’s only $660,000 available for environmental programs, including land acquisition, according to Rodriguez’s ministry.

“The government does what it can with the resources it has, but it’s not nearly enough,” said Joel Saenz, an ecologist at Costa Rica’s National University who has studied the titi monkey. “Like all Latin American governments, Costa Rica doesn’t have a lot of money.”

The economic pressures, along with a wave of illegal immigration from Nicaragua and corruption that has allowed illegal development to flourish in some places, have contributed to the government’s failure to fulfill many of its environmental commitments. Manuel Antonio National Park is a prime example.

The 1,684-acre park is the most visited in the national system and perhaps the most striking. Tucked into a point of land jutting out from nearby Quepos, it was once a getaway spot for executives from the United Fruit Co., which controlled the vast banana plantations that once dominated the region.

Trails wind through dense tropical forest. Wildlife abounds. Sloths dangle from soaring trees. Several different species of monkey shake through the jungle. Hawks float overhead. Clear blue water laps against broad, sandy beaches.

Its most important role, however, may be as the sole protected habitat in Costa Rica for the titi monkeys, also known as red-backed squirrel monkeys because of the orange or red stripe running down their backs.

The small, friendly animals weigh about a pound and a half. They are not aggressive and are often taken in as pets--an illegal but common occurrence.

It’s actually not difficult to find a monkey. They thrive around humans because they eat fruit from trees planted on small farms.

Some bars around the park have made a habit of feeding the monkeys in the evenings, resulting in “Monkey Hour” drink specials.

The animals’ seeming ubiquity has obscured the danger they face. The population has declined from an estimated 200,000 in the early 1980s, mostly because of habitat fragmentation.

The monkey spends most of its time in the trees and has the unfortunate habit of using electrical wires to help it cross roads, often resulting in electrocution.

Experts fear that as their habitat is chopped up further, different tribes of the monkeys will become more isolated, leading to their eventual extinction through inbreeding.

Manuel Antonio National Park, which has 200 to 300 of the monkeys, forms the heart of conservationists’ plans to string together a web of protected areas and wildlife corridors.

But the key is getting the money to buy the land. Government programs to reforest or protect surrounding areas -- dominated by ecotourism lodges and plantations of African oil palms and rice -- have foundered in recent years.

Five years ago, the government paid local farmers to reforest or leave undisturbed about 1,600 acres of forest in the surrounding area. This year, there was only money for about 500 acres.

Worse, 30 years after Manuel Antonio park was founded, the government hasn’t even finished paying for it. About 30% of the land remains in the hands of private owners, who are still waiting to be compensated.

“Poor farmers can’t protect their land without money,” said Gerardo Abarca, a local forestry manager who is in charge of conservation and reforestation programs. “The government is giving no incentives to the farmers to protect the environment.”

That’s where local businesses and nonprofit groups have stepped in. Several different organizations have begun raising money to either buy land outright or pay local landowners to not develop their property.

Damalas’ group of local hoteliers and business owners dedicated to ecotourism has begun buying trees to reforest habitat for the monkey. Its argument is economic: Businesses should invest in the environment to save the monkey, which draws tourists to the park.

Another group is the Foundation of Preserved Lands, which is trying to buy a farm on the southern Pacific Coast that is ideal habitat for the animal. The property lies in the path of a proposed dam project.

Both groups are small and struggling. Damalas’ organization has only about 16 members from among the hundreds of local businesses. And the foundation has raised only a few thousand dollars to purchase the $800,000 property.

But both have pledged to fill the gap left by the government.

Damalas’ group, for instance, already has planted about 5,000 trees along a strip of river south of Manuel Antonio Park.

The hope is that the trees will provide a natural bridge over the river, allowing the monkey access to more habitat without exposing it to the danger of electrocution.

Such efforts have energized people like Cordero, the nature guide. Despite a fruitless meander through the park in search of the monkey, he is hopeful about its future.

“We made a big mistake in Costa Rica. We depended on the government for everything,” he said as he wandered down a sun-dappled path. “Now, we are coming together and making our voices heard.”