The latest score on Bolivar.

• Author: Modi, Sorab
• Position: Opera on the life of Latin America patriot Simon Bolivar

A wildlife sanctuary located in the jungle northwest of Belize City, Belize, is proving that it is possible to balance the needs of wildlife with the needs of people. The Community Baboon Sanctuary (CBS) spans about a fifteen-square-mile area, where howler monkeys -- or "baboons" as the Creole people call them -- make their home in the rain forest treetops.

In the early 1980s ethologist Robert Horwich conducted a study of black howler monkeys in Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala. The howler is named for its loud roar -- a special chamber in the throat amplifies its hoarse howl, which can be heard up to a mile away. Although Horwich's study revealed that monkey populations were declining in Guatemala and Mexico, he discovered a thriving population in the rain forest along the Belize River. Determined to keep that population healthy, Horwich and colleague Jon Lyon, a plant ecologist, began to talk to farmers living in the area about forming a wildlife sanctuary.

However, according to Lyon, the landowners had already been conserving monkey habitat through their land-use practices. "The small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture practiced by local farmers was actually beneficial to the monkeys," he says. "The low human population in the area meant that only small portions of forest were cleared at any given time and then left fallow for fifteen to forty years. This produced a mosaic of different aged forests, which was great habitat for the howlers."

Complementing that were the landowners' own interest in and affinity for the monkeys, whom they consider to be part of the community. "The baboon does not bother people," says Orlando Dawson, a resident of one of the surrounding villages. "He does not eat crops or things like that. He will come out there in the village and probably eat the fruit from the cashew [tree], but they always will come, because they are like a part of the people. So we don't disturb those baboons."

Horwich and Lyon worked with the landowners to develop a conservation plan. The idea was to retain strips of forest around the farms so the monkeys could continue to use these corridors for travel and feeding. Because howlers rarely come out of the trees, the forest is key to their survival. In addition, landowners would agree to leave strips of trees standing along the Belize River to protect the riverbanks from erosion. Cutting riverine forests results in a loss of crops, loss of land, and a decrease in soil fertility.

Horwich and...