Voluneer Opportunities with EPS Eco Travel Planning with EPS Active Conservationist Program Project Updates

Fifty years ago, the Pacific coast of Central America was a wild coastal jungle. The tiny Mono Titi monkey ranged freely from Panama through Costa Rica. Today, the Mono Titi is restricted to two small, disconnected scraps of habitat, Manuel Antonio National Park, north of Playa El Ray, and Corcovado National Park to the south. Every day, the Mono Titi's habitat diminishes, and so do the Mono Titi.

During the middle of the last century, Costa Rica emerged from third world impoverishment through a national agricultural development program. Devastating deforestation made way for alien crops like bananas, rice and cattle. Developers imported their visions of a tropical paradise by erecting modern resorts surrounded by coconut palms, also non-indigenous to Costa Rica and unsupportive to native wildlife.

Thus, the Mono Titi are left with nowhere to go. They are trapped in two small islands of habitat amidst an inhospitable landscape, no biological corridor connecting them and no hope for survival without substantial intervention.

Saving the Mono Titi ~ The Documentary

Mono Titi monkeys are among the smallest primates on Earth. Weighing in at 22 ounces or so, they are unabashedly adorable and socially egalitarian. Both males and females nurture their young, and they exhibit no social class or hierarchical order. It is believed that only 1,700 Mono Titi monkeys remain. Restoring their habitat and creating a biological corridor between habitats is critical to their survival.   ALSO SEE: Http://SavingMonoTiti.com

The Eco Preservation Society has more than 60 hours of raw video of interviews for the purpose of producing a documentary featuring the Quepos/Manuel Antonio community. Manuel Antonio is the birthplace of eco tourism. After nearly 30 years of eco tourism development, more than 600,000 visitors are attracted to the park every year. The documentary is a case study of a community that struggles to retain its identity as a premier eco tour destination in the face of diminishing habitat at the hands of developers.

Habitat Restoration

Saving the Mono Titi requires the restoration of a biological corridor between the Naranjo River and the Savegre River. Not an easy undertaking. The project requires removing and reversing the negative effects of non-native plants, such as deep-rooted grasses, sea almond and coconut palms. Then natural mangrove colonies must be re-established, using native varieties of mangrove, ferns and other salt-tolerant species. Ultimately, a biological corridor connecting the two separate Mono Titi habits would spare the monkeys from extinction and provide additional habitat for other indigenous Costa Rican animals.

Scientific Research, Data Collection & Google Earth Engine

Eco Preservation Society will maintain database of the forest we are creating. Each tree planted will have its GPS location recorded along with the date planted and the species of the tree. EPS will catalog soil samples on regular intervals as well as collect precipitation data. This database will aid scientists in the future can study the processes involved in creating a forest from a wasteland.

EPS is following closely the Google Earth Engine technology and we plan to integrate our database with this platform. At the present time we are working directly with the Indigenous Mapping Network, the first group to deploy this technology. See: Http://www.google.org/earthengin