Primates in Peril

in the community and in nearby towns for reasonably
attractive prices and provided extra income. A home
gardening project was launched to help mothers
housebound with child-rearing encumbrances to grow
vegetables, to improve family nutrition and sell excess
produce at nearby markets.
While the project strengthened its ties with local
communities another threat in the form of humanmonkey
conflicts began to cause serious concern.
This problem has continued to intensify (Nahallage
et al. 2008), and currently affects all eight subspecies
of Sri Lankan monkeys. Nearly 27% of the complaints
(N = 371) received between 2007 and 2013 by the
Department of Wildlife Conservation were about S. v.
nestor. Most of the complaints about these monkeys
came from residents living around the capital city who
tend to be well educated and professionally qualified.
Hence several newspaper articles were published to
highlight the plight of S. v. nestor, and to remind the
mainly Buddhist public about its cultural heritage of
showing compassion to all living things.
Appeals via newspaper articles and all other on-going
activities to help conserve S. v. nestor will continue.
These activities will be replicated when another site is
identified as suitable for the long-term survival of S. v.
nestor. While working to conserve S. v. nestor, it was hard
to ignore the fact that the other three subspecies related
to it, three macaque subspecies and two loris subspecies,
all of which are endangered and endemic to Sri Lanka,
were also in dire straits either because of deforestation
or because of conflict with humans, or both. The current
project was expanded to address the conservation of
these animals as well. The present focus of this expanded
initiative is a site in the central highlands of Sri Lanka,
which is home to the montane subspecies of the purplefaced
langur, the toque macaque, and the red slender
loris. Reforestation, public education and community
development activities are currently underway at this
site. Meanwhile vehicle surveys are being conducted
in various parts of Sri Lanka to evaluate the intensity
of human-monkey conflict, human attitudes towards
this problem, and to identify areas outside the country’s
protected area system that local communities could
manage under the supervision of wildlife authorities
to derive benefits through the sustainable use of forest
products, and through nature tourism and educational
activities.
Active participation of local communities in managing
and deriving sustainable benefits from natural habitats
65
is a new concept in Sri Lanka. It was presented and
discussed during two workshops where it received
favorable responses from government authorities and
non-governmental organizations. Accordingly, this idea
has been incorporated into a Conservation Action Plan
for Sri Lanka’s non-human primates that is currently
being developed following IUCN guidelines. When this
Action Plan is completed it will be submitted to the Sri
Lankan government and the IUCN for approval.
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