The Tamarin Trust supports the conservation of the smallest monkeys in the world – the marmosets and tamarins. For more information about our projects, please click on the projects or images below, or watch our short introductory video.

Become a Friend of Tamarin Trust!

We are very excited to launch our new scheme, Friends of Tamarin Trust. With a small monthly donation, you will enable us to expand our work in South America with tamarins and marmosets.

If you become a Friend, a portion of your donation each year will go towards the tree planting initiative we are supporting in the heart of the Amazon, to help cover the cost of taking a native tree seed from collection, through germination in the nursery, to planting out, and then monitoring to ensure that it is safely established. We will keep you up to date regularly on the progress of the scheme.

Find out more here

Plant a tree in the Amazon!

Help the pied tamarins of Manaus by buying one of our special cards. For each card purchased, our partners the Pied Tamarin Project, will plant a native Amazonian tree to help reconnect the fragments of forest that are home to the remaining pied tamarins, and provide them with food and shelter. Your support covers the cost of collecting seeds, germinating and growing them on in the project’s nursery, planting them out and then keeping an eye on them to ensure that they flourish.

You can find the cards in our online shop, and read more about the reforestation project here.

Thank you for your support!

News

Pied tamarin conservation update

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8 March 2026

Saving the world’s smallest monkeys from extinction

Saving the world’s rarest marmosets

The buffy-headed and buffy tufted-ear marmosets are found only in the highlands of Brazil’s Atlantic forest. They are very threatened by habitat loss, and also by other species of marmoset that have invaded their ranges, competing with them for resources, and sometimes hybridising with them. If this continues, these two marmoset species face extinction. Our partners in the Mountain Marmoset Conservation Program urgently need to carry out a rapid survey of the remaining populations, to identify where they live, and where they are most at risk.

We are also hoping to fund a documentary about the conservation of these marmosets, to raise awareness of their plight.

Rescue centres for tamarins

Pied tamarins are living on the edge in and around the Amazonian city of Manaus. As they try to move between one tiny patch of forest within the city and the next, they are at risk from road traffic, cats and dogs, and electrocution from power lines. Tamarins in trouble are taken to rescue centres, where they can be treated for illness or injury, prior to being released again into the wild, or if they cannot, become part of a breeding programme.

Similarly, golden-headed lion tamarins are suffering from increasing fragmentation of their habitat and are often being killed on roads.

We supporting the building of a specialist centre for pied tamarins in Manaus, and new rescue and rehabilitation cages for golden-headed lion tamarins in Bahia..

Tamarin and marmoset workshops

We are continuing to run a series of workshops in Brazil focusing on the conservation management of threatened marmosets and tamarins. The workshops bring together Brazilian conservationists and policy makers working in rescue centres, zoos, universities, national and local government. All accommodation and food for attendees is paid for by the workshop organisers. This helps key staff working directly with our target species to attend.

Workshops in our species’ home countries help to build up skills and expertise, so that captive populations and reintroductions can be as successful as possible.