Note: Thank you to everyone who supported this campaign and helped us reach our target! if you would like to keep supporting EDGE project consider a monthly donation.
Until recently the Horton Plains slender loris (Loris tardigradus nycticeboides) was believed possibly extinct. In 2009 after two hundred hours of surveying ZSL EDGE researchers rediscovered this sub-species and took the first ever photographs and measurements of a specimen. There are only approximately 80 individuals left and they need your help now. The principal threat facing the slender loris is habitat loss; it is restricted to living in Montane Evergreen Forests and has already lost 80% of its habitat. There are less than 3,000 hectares of Montane Evergreen Forests of Sri Lanka, and that which remains is highly fragmented into forest patches.
This pilot project will establish a participatory reforestation programme, creating ecological corridors between fragmented forest patches in the highlands of central Sri Lanka. With your help we will target former forested areas which are currently redundant scrubland on degraded areas of plantation, here by planting native species we can establish ‘new’ forest corridors. To do this we will be using community cooperatives, and working with the Sri Lankan Forest Department and plantation owners. This stakeholder driven approach to reforestation will enhance wider environmental awareness and provide community benefits.
This project will not only benefit the endangered loris, but also a host of other species found within the threatened montane forest environment such as the leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya), the ‘shaggy bear monkey’ (Trachypithecus vetulus monticola), the endemic Nillu rat (Rattus montanus), and the Sri Lanka spiny mouse (Mus ohiensis) amongst others. Help us conserve these incredible species today.
Thanks to BBCWF for supporting our work in this project 