Protecting cotton-top tamarins begins with protecting their home. These critically endangered monkeys, found only in Colombia, need forests where they can find food, shelter, and room to raise their families. Securing their future means protecting the forest that remains and bringing forest back to places where it has disappeared. That understanding has guided Proyecto Tití’s conservation work for nearly two decades. Beginning in 2008, partnerships with regional environmental authorities helped establish four public protected areas in Atlántico and Bolívar, adding more than 5,100 hectares to Colombia’s protected-area system.
Those achievements inspired another ambition: to establish a reserve where Proyecto Tití could protect existing habitat, restore cleared land, and create a lasting home for cotton-top tamarins and the wildlife that shares their tropical dry forest.
From a First Purchase to a Growing Reserve
In 2015, support from generous donors made it possible to purchase the first 70 hectares of Los Titíes de San Juan Forest Reserve. It was the beginning of a conservation project that would grow far beyond its original boundaries.
The location made those first hectares especially valuable. The reserve borders Los Colorados, a protected sanctuary within Colombia’s national parks system. Establishing a reserve beside it created an opportunity to extend habitat protection beyond the sanctuary’s boundaries. Proyecto Tití’s 2024 Annual Report Over the following years, friends and supporters helped Proyecto Tití acquire more land. Each addition brought new possibilities for protecting forest and restoring areas previously used for cattle ranching and agriculture. A major opportunity arrived in 2024, when Proyecto Tití purchased a neighboring 450-hectare property.
Today, Los Titíes de San Juan protects more than 900 hectares—a remarkable expansion from that first purchase less than a decade earlier.
Why Good Neighbors Matter
A protected area’s boundary is a line on a map. For wildlife, what grows on either side matters much more. When neighboring land provides forest habitat, it adds space where animals can find resources and move through the landscape.
When that land is cleared, the forest ends, and opportunities for wildlife become more limited. Los Titíes de San Juan is helping change that picture. Protecting land beside Los Colorados and restoring former pastures can create a larger, more connected forest landscape. The reserve also connects with forest corridors developed through partnerships with local farmers and conservation organizations, extending the value of this work beyond a single property. Proyecto Tití’s 2024 Annual Report
That is what makes the reserve such a valuable neighbor: its growth supports a future in which wildlife has more forest to call home.
Bringing the Forest Back
Purchasing land is only the beginning. Much of the newly protected property was once cattle pasture, and restoring it takes sustained effort. Proyecto Tití has been restoring approximately 80 hectares each year, propagating and planting native trees to help rebuild the tropical dry forest.
The planting program calls for 60,000 trees annually in 2026, 2027, and 2028. Restoration will continue until the entire area formerly used for cattle ranching has been restored. The work requires patience. Newly planted trees need time to become the forest that cotton-top tamarins need. As they grow, they help rebuild the living structure of a habitat: branches, foliage, shelter, and connections between trees. Each planting season moves the reserve closer to that goal. Land once maintained as open pasture is being given the opportunity to support forest again.
A Future Built Together
Los Titíes de San Juan exists because people believed in a future worth protecting. Donors, conservation partners, and the people carrying out the restoration have helped turn an ambitious idea into a growing reserve. There is still work ahead, but the direction is clear. More protected land, more native trees, and more connected forest mean greater possibilities for cotton-top tamarins. Beside Los Colorados, a good neighbor is putting down roots—and helping a whole forest grow.