Sometimes when I look at the open pastures at Los Titíes de San Juan Forest Reserve, I try to imagine what it will look like 10, 20, or 50 years from now. Today, I might be standing in the hot Colombian sun surrounded by grass and tiny trees that barely reach my waist. But in my mind, I see a forest; I see tall trees with overlapping branches; I see birds flying through the canopy; I see howler monkeys, pumas, iguanas, butterflies, and countless other creatures finding homes there. And, of course, I see cotton-top tamarins leaping from branch to branch. That is what forest restoration is really about. We're not planting trees just because we like trees—although we certainly do! We're planting trees because cotton-top tamarins need a forest, and there simply isn't enough of it left.
It All Started with 175 Acres
When people ask me what we need to do to save cotton-top tamarins, I can give them a pretty long list. We need good science. We need environmental education. We need communities that value cotton-tops and want to protect them. We need to stop people from keeping them as pets. And we need to create economic opportunities that allow people and wildlife to thrive together. But none of those things will save cotton-top tamarins if they don't have somewhere to live. That's why protecting their forest home has always been at the heart of Proyecto Tití's work.
Beginning in 2008, we worked with regional environmental authorities to help establish four public protected areas in Atlántico and Bolívar, adding more than 12,600 acres to Colombia's protected-area system. That was a tremendous accomplishment, but it also made us start dreaming a little bigger. What if Proyecto Tití could establish its own forest reserve—a place where we could protect existing cotton-top habitat, restore land that had been cleared for cattle and agriculture, conduct research, and create a permanent home for cotton-top tamarins and all the other wonderful wildlife that shares their tropical dry forest?
In 2015, some very generous friends helped us turn that dream into reality. We purchased our first 175 acres—and those weren't just any 175 acres. They were right next door to Los Colorados Flora and Fauna Sanctuary, a roughly 2,500-acre protected area within Colombia's national parks system. Suddenly, Proyecto Tití had become the neighbor of a national park. And if you're going to have a national park for a neighbor, you might as well be a really good one!
From 175 Acres to More Than 2,200
Over the next several years, whenever neighboring properties became available—and whenever we could find the funding—we tried to add them to the reserve. I began to think of it as putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle: every property we acquired added another piece. Some contained beautiful forests that we could immediately protect; others were cattle pastures or agricultural land. Those pieces didn't look quite as exciting at first, but they offered something equally important: possibility. We could grow the forest back. Then, in 2024, we had an extraordinary opportunity to purchase a large neighboring property of approximately 1,100 acres. Today, Los Titíes de San Juan Forest Reserve protects more than 2,200 acres. I have to admit, when I think about that original 175-acre purchase, even I am a little amazed by what it has become. But we're not finished.
Monkeys Don't Understand Property Lines
One of the funny things about conservation is how much time humans spend drawing lines on maps: national park, private reserve, farm, municipality, property boundary. Cotton-top tamarins, of course, couldn't care less about any of them. A cotton-top doesn't leap onto a branch and think, Oops! I've just left Los Colorados and entered Los Titíes de San Juan. It just wants another tree. And then another. And another. That's why having protected forest next to a national park matters so much. If a protected area is surrounded by cleared pasture, its boundary can essentially become the end of the forest. But when neighboring lands are protected and restored, the amount of habitat available to wildlife can grow far beyond the original protected area. That is exactly what we're trying to accomplish. And our vision doesn't stop at the boundaries of Los Titíes de San Juan. Proyecto Tití also works with local farmers and conservation partners to establish forest corridors on privately owned land. Piece by piece, those corridors can connect patches of habitat across the landscape. For cotton-top tamarins, connectivity is everything.
So, How Do You Grow a Forest?
Very slowly! I wish we could plant a seed today and have a tropical dry forest tomorrow. Unfortunately, forests don't work that way. Our restoration program begins long before a tree goes into the ground. Our team collects seeds from native trees and takes them to our nurseries, where they are carefully propagated and nurtured into saplings. The young trees are then transported to restoration sites, planted, maintained, and monitored. But we're not simply trying to cover the landscape in greenery. We want to recreate the diversity and structure of a tropical dry forest. That means planting many different native tree species that can eventually provide food, shelter and sleeping sites for the wildlife.
It's a tremendous amount of work, but every tree is part of something much bigger. Our goal is to plant 60,000 native trees each year in 2026, 2027, and 2028, restoring approximately 200 acres annually. And we'll keep going until the former cattle pastures within the reserve have been restored. Sixty thousand trees sounds like a lot—until you stand in the middle of 1,100 acres of former cattle pasture. Then you realize we'd better get planting!
My Favorite Part
There is one moment in this whole process that I absolutely love: it's when the cotton-tops show up. At first, a restoration site doesn't look much like a forest. You see young trees with lots of open space between them. But every year, those trees get a little taller. Their branches spread, the canopy begins to close, and shade returns. Insects arrive. Birds arrive. Other plants begin to establish themselves. And then, one day, you look up and see a cotton-top tamarin moving through trees that we planted. We've already documented cotton-tops foraging in some of our young restored forests. For me, there is no better proof that this work matters. Because ultimately, our measure of success isn't How many trees did we plant? It's Did we create a forest that cotton-top tamarins can actually use? When I see a cotton-top leap onto the branch of a tree that our restoration team planted only a few years earlier, I think we have part of our answer.
Plant a Tree for a Tamarin
There is something else I love about this project: you don't have to be standing in Colombia with a shovel in your hand to help us grow this forest. You can plant a tree for a tamarin. A $20 donation helps Proyecto Tití grow and plant one native tree as part of our forest restoration program. That tree may start as a tiny seed in one of our nurseries. Our team will nurture it into a sapling, plant it at a restoration site, and give it the opportunity to become part of a new tropical dry forest. Someday, a cotton-top tamarin may eat fruit from that tree; a mother may carry her twins through its branches and long after we're gone, that tree may still be standing.
Our goal is to plant 60,000 trees in 2027. That's 60,000 opportunities to turn pasture back into forest. If you'd like to help us, please consider making a donation to our Trees for Tamarins campaign. $20 plants one tree, $100 plants five, $400 plants twenty and $2,000 plants one hundred trees—and that's starting to look like a forest!
Help us plant trees for tamarins
Sometimes conservation problems can seem impossibly large. But I've learned something during all these years of working with cotton-top tamarins: big changes often begin with very small things: a seed, a sapling and a 175-acre reserve. Today, that reserve has grown to more than 2,200 acres. And beside Los Colorados, thousands of young trees are putting down roots. Some of them will become part of a forest that I may never see fully grown. But hopefully, generations of cotton-top tamarins will. And that makes planting every single tree worthwhile.