Brazil on the Brink: Part 1 – Manaus

As part of our ongoing relationship with the Durrell Wildlife Conservation team we sent a film crew to the heart of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil. Three primate specialists from Durrell were in the region to coordinate a symposium focussing on captive breeding programs as part of the ongoing conservation programme.

Our cameraman spent five days in Manaus in northern Brazil filming wild monkeys in the jungle to highlight the plight of the Pied Tamarin whose habitat is being destroyed as the sprawling city struggles to keep pace with the exploding population.

Many of the local conservation experts at the symposium had been trained previously by Durrell at their head quarters in Jersey and we took the chance to film a series of short case studies.

The crew then travelled south to the small fragments of the Atlantic Forest which are home to the Black Lion Tamarin, one of the most endangered species of primate in the world.

“Each day we got up and left the lodge at 4am to drive for an hour through the sugarcane plantations to the small forest fragments. We met up with the local guides in the dark at the edge of the forest and then with head torches on followed them along machete hacked trails through the solid walls of jungle to the enormous trees with the Black Lion Tamarins. We then set up the cameras and waited – sometimes for six hours – to catch even a glimpse of a monkey! Finally on the last day we got the shots we needed.”

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