A juvenile hooded capuchin monkey in the sunset in the Paraguayan Atlantic Forest. © Rebecca L. Smith.

Based on more than a decade of research into the Vulnerable hooded capuchin monkey’s ecology and adaptability, combined with years of collaboration with local communities, we are working to restore the Atlantic Forest on previously cleared land. Combining reforestation with the planting of the endemic cash crop, Yerba Mate, provides a sustainable income for marginalised indigenous Mbya Guaraní communities. With this multifaceted approach, using the hooded capuchin as a flagship species, we are reconnecting remaining forest fragments while building capacity and increasing conservation literacy in local communities.

With the continued support of the Rufford Foundation, we are including a second Mbya Guaraní community, thereby restoring more habitat and bringing project sustainability by establishing tree nurseries. These nurseries will give the communities greater agency over the project by allowing them to produce their own saplings.

Through participatory education in 12 indigenous schools (11 Mbya Guaraní and one Maka community), we will inspire a new generation of conservationists from Paraguay’s most neglected communities, providing quantitative evidence for improving science teaching while building relationships and laying the foundations for future expansion of the reforestation.

We will monitor the impact of this project on San Rafael (Tekoha Guazu) through an extensive camera trap survey at the edge and centre of Paraguay’s largest remaining, and extremely threatened, Atlantic Forest fragment.