Why the Radio Silence?

So after nearly 10 months of no activity i am finally ready to restart this blog. Some people reading this know the reason for the radio silence. Over the last year my colleagues and I at PLT got a rather rude awakening to the darker side of life as a conservationist. I will give a very brief account of what is a pretty depressing story. 

Since 2010 PLT had operated out of Reserva Natural Laguna Blanca in San Pedro, Paraguay. Our goal was (and still is) to conserve Paraguay’s natural habitat using a combination of scientific research, community engagement and education of international volunteers and interns. This is not always an easy life to live - you are far from your family, you miss birthdays, weddings, births and funerals and you don’t earn a lot of money. However we all do this because we believe it is important and we want to make a difference and we know it is worth the sacrifices we make. 

Laguna Blanca (January 2013)

In October last year the administration of Laguna Blanca changed and for the next six months we tried our hardest to carry on as normal in spite of our lives being made increasingly difficult. Unfortunately the situation became unliveable and on May 1^st, Karina, Jorge and I packed the car for the final time and drove away from what had been our home. It wasn’t without its casualties. We were forced to leave behind our museum collection - the biggest in the country from a single site and an invaluable scientific resource. And for me personally, I had to say goodbye to the capuchins I had spent more than four years habituating.  Devastating doesn’t really begin to cover it. 

O Group juvenile (April 2017)

Laguna Blanca (January 2013)

However I’m sure we are not the first and wont be the last conservationists to have the rug pulled from under us and we might be bruised but we are certainly not broken.  

Thanks to an incredibly generous donation from the late Don Julio Contreras - a very impressive Argentinian biologist, we now own a beautiful house in the city of Pilar. And thanks to the generous people who donated to our end of year fundraiser we were able to transform this house into a scientific education wonderland that accommodates our new ecoclub project, our volunteer and intern program, a space for our new museum and a lab.  In regards to primatology there are lots of exciting new opportunities. Pilar is crawling with black and gold howler monkeys - every patch of trees in the town appears to have its own group! 

Black and Gold Howler monkeys at Santa Ana - a property in the humid Chaco just outside Pilar.

And the capuchin research continues! We have partnered with Procosara, a wonderful organisation dedicated to protecting San Rafael, the largest Atlantic Forest fragment left in Paraguay. Two weeks a month I take groups of volunteers out to Procosara where we spend 12 hours a day exploring this incredible forest.  The recent past may be dark but the future of PLT is looking bright. I have been in serious denial about what happened at Laguna Blanca but I’m now ready to take these lessons and use them going forward. I feel like I now understand the real issues conservationists can face and it isn’t the lack of good cheese, avocados or a fast broadband connection! 

Spot-billed toucanet at Procosara

Capuchin monkey eating pine cones at Procosara

So goodbye Laguna Blanca, O Group and F Group. It was an amazing four years. Ok future; let’s see what you've got.