The Black Lion Tamarin Conservation Program was the seed for the creation of IPÊ. The conservation efforts began back in 1984, when Claudio Valladares Padua decided to completely change his life to dedicate himself to the conservation of this rare species, which was once considered extinct from the wild, but was rediscovered in the 1970s.

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The research and combined actions of environmental education and forest restoration have already had very positive effects for the species, such as changing its category of threat and supporting the creation of Conservation Units.

The Black Lion Tamarin, scientifically called Leontopithecus chrysopygus, is one of the rarest and most endangered primate species in the world. Endemic to the Atlantic Rainforest in the interior of the state of São Paulo, it was considered extinct from the wild for many years and, even today, its situation is serious as the species was listed in the Red Data Book (IUCN) as critically endangered. Today, due to the efforts of IPÊ’s Black Lion Tamarin project, this tamarin is listed in a more hopeful category. The biggest threat to the conservation of the black lion tamarin is the fragmentation of forests, which causes the isolation and decline of the remaining populations and the consequent degradation of their habitat.

The Black Lion Tamarin Conservation Program involves not only the conservation of tamarins, but also of the entire ecosystem in which they occur. The idea is to use the species as a symbol or “umbrella” for the conservation of priority forest areas. The aim is to recover degraded areas and/or create corridors that connect forest fragments where marmoset families are isolated.

Many of these actions depend on a well-designed environmental education program, which conveys scientific knowledge in an accessible way and makes the public aware of the importance of conserving these primates. Finally, the project has been looking for sustainable development alternatives that can enhance local nature and generate income, contributing to the effective improvement of the lives of local communities and winning allies for conservation.

During the years of studies with the species, we can list the following results:

• Knowledge of the species’ biology/ecology throughout its range;
• Discovery of new subpopulations and new priority areas for the species;
• Update of the species’ population estimate, with a 50% increase in the known population size;
• Influence on specific public policies for the conservation of the species, which contributed to the creation of a Federal Conservation Unit (Black Lion Tamarin Ecological Station);
• Specific studies of management techniques for the species (translocation, reintroduction and dispersal);
• Environmental education actions and community involvement in five municipalities in the species’ area of occurrence, reaching different audiences (students, teachers, principals, rural and urban communities);
• Hundreds of students trained;
• More than ten theses (master’s and doctoral) produced with the research data;

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