In his latest update from his recent visit to Brazil, Tamarin Trust founder Dom Wormell reports on the project to save the pied tamarin.

We arrived at a small patch of scrubby urban forest running alongside the Mindu River, which still cuts its way through Manaus. Even before getting out of the car, you could smell the river. The stench hangs in the air because, in places, the river is little more than an open sewer.

And yet this seemingly unpromising strip of forest is important. It is part of the Mindu Forest Corridor, a protected area that provides a vital link between fragments of forest within the city. And, importantly, it is still used by one of the world’s most endangered primates – the pied tamarin.

We were there to plant fruit trees for the tamarins. Tamarin Trust is funding this vital project, and by becoming a Friend of Tamarin Trust, you can help – we will plant a tree for everyone who joins the Friends scheme.

It sounds simple enough, but I quickly discovered that planting a tree in Manaus is not necessarily the straightforward business I had imagined. We unloaded the trees and equipment, and project director Marcelo Gordo and his colleague, Anilton, set to work with a huge drill-like machine to break into the ground.

The soil here is largely the white sand on which the original forest stood, and it is remarkably difficult to dig into. The holes have to be properly prepared and filled with good compost and hydrogel to give the young trees the best possible chance of surviving.

Marcelo has been doing this for several years, and we walked around the patch of forest looking at some of the fruit trees he had already planted. He inspected them, watered them and checked their progress with an extraordinary degree of care. He treated them almost as companions – the same plants he had nurtured in his nursery, now released into the wild, where they will hopefully grow and provide food for pied tamarins.

Watching him was rather wonderful, and you can see more of Marcelo and his work in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e61LqSlLps

Marcelo told us that some of the local residents occasionally pull up trees planted close to the road. They don’t necessarily understand why they are there, and some simply don’t want trees dropping leaves near their houses. So Marcelo has another job besides planting trees: explaining why they matter.

Many people living alongside these fragments of forest have little idea just how endangered the pied tamarin is. Marcelo works with the community, patiently explaining that these small patches of forest are not simply untidy pieces of vegetation in the middle of a city. They are part of the remaining habitat of a species found nowhere else.

The tree planting is therefore much more than simply putting fruit trees into the ground. It is creating a resource for the tamarins and helping to stitch together the remaining fragments of forest across Manaus.

And Marcelo cannot do it alone. The work depends heavily on volunteers – people who give their time in the nursery and others who turn up at weekends to help plant and maintain the trees. Thankfully, the number of people getting involved is growing, and Marcelo has been able to expand the nursery. He now also has a farm outside the city, which gives him considerably more space to grow the plants needed for this work.

His nursery is fascinating. It is part laboratory, part workshop and part growing space, and here Marcelo is working out how to germinate some of the many native species needed for the forest. Some of these plants are incredibly complicated. Some types of fig trees, for example, have evolved extraordinarily precise relationships with tiny specialist wasps. Their reproduction depends on these minute insects, and even getting the seeds to germinate successfully can require very specific conditions and timing. Some species will only germinate during particular periods of the year.

It means that conservation is sometimes a matter of getting the smallest details right. Marcelo is determined to understand these processes, and he is having real success. What might appear to be just a collection of seedlings is actually the result of an enormous amount of knowledge, patience and experimentation.

But perhaps what struck me most was the setting.

Manaus is a huge city sitting right in the middle of the Amazon. Flying in, you can see the two great rivers — the Solimões and the Rio Negro — coming together beside the city. And then there is Manaus itself, spreading out into the forest.

This is the only place on Earth where the pied tamarin occurs. That makes the situation both extraordinary and frightening. There has to be a plan for creating a green network through the city, protecting what remains and reconnecting the isolated fragments. But the work cannot stop at the city limits.

There are important areas of forest outside Manaus that also need to be protected and connected.

One possibility is to work with some of the farms and cattle ranches that surround the remaining forest. Land in this part of the Amazon can be surprisingly inexpensive – around 100 hectares can sometimes be acquired for as little as £30,000. If landowners can make a living while keeping most of the forest standing, there is a genuine opportunity to combine conservation with an income.

Agroforestry can provide that opportunity. Shade-grown coffee, cacao and other crops can be grown while retaining much of the existing forest. The landowner can make a profit, while the forest remains standing and the wildlife that depends upon it can continue to live there.

We also discussed plans for a dedicated enclosure and exhibit area focused on pied tamarin conservation. The idea is to create somewhere that can tell the story of this extraordinary little primate and the fight to save it, while also providing a place where animals coming through the local rescue centre can potentially be rehabilitated.

This is one of the areas where I have been collaborating with partners. I feel this could make a huge difference in the awareness of local people and therefore change the fortune for the better for the last remaining populations of pied tamarins, and the forests that still stand in the city.

So conservation here isn’t just about protecting a distant piece of rainforest. It is about planting trees in the city, day after day, keeping green spaces. It is about reconnecting fragments, working with communities, finding ways for farmers to make a living without destroying the forest, and giving critically endangered species somewhere to live.

For the pied tamarin, every tree matters. And as Marcelo walked around the area inspecting the trees he had planted several years ago. he said in his quiet, dignified voice: ‘I love these trees’.