Monkeys in Panama and Holland

Earlier this year we spent two months in Panama, trying to assess the opportunities. During that time we attended a presentation by Adrian Benedetti for the Panama Audubon Society (www.panamaaudubon.org). Adrian is the director of the Summit Gardens in Panama and presented the master plan for the Summit Gardens (www.summitpanama.org). The Summit Gardens were constructed/planted by the Americans early in the last century to do research on tropical plants. Nowadays it s a zoo/botanical garden/picnic area. Adrian mentioned that it was not difficult to obtain sponsorship to renovate the enclosures of the Harpy Eagle, (Panama’s national bird), the jaguar and the larger and colourful parrots and macaws. Finding money to renovate the monkey enclosures proved to be far more difficult.

So when we were in Holland, we decided to try and help out. We approached the Apenheul Primate Park (www.apenheul.nl) a zoo specialised in monkeys. They were interested and invited us for a meeting. So we got some more information from Adrian via e-mail and went to have a chat.

The Apenheul Primate Park has established a trust, the Apenheul Primate Conservation Trust (APCT) and donates 2% of its income to the trust. The trust also receives gifts from individuals etc. The trust uses this money and the expertise of Apenheul staff to help protect wild populations of primates and to improve living conditions of primates kept in zoos. The trust is especially interested in long term collaboration with partners and in projects that are or will become self sustainable. Furthermore, they have a particular interest in squirrel monkeys.

Well, squirrel monkeys do occur in Panama, in the international park La Amistad on the border with Costa Rica and the Summit Gardens are aiming to become self sustainable, so the match was pretty good. The meeting went quite well and we sent the minutes to Adrian for his information as well.

And last week we received good news. The board of the APCT has approved collaboration with Summit Gardens! We told Adrian the good news and also gave him all the information from the APCT and the Apenheul Primate Park. Together we designed a strategy to start with small a project and slowly increase the collaboration as trust between the organisations grows. We also visited the primate enclosures once again, this time in together with Halit, who was recently contracted to improve care for the monkeys. Adrian had certainly been busy during the last few months. This is all quite exciting and although we are doing this as volunteers, and therefore won’t be able to make a living out of this, it will help to build some social capital in Panama.