From the moment Fanny Cornejo cradled a rescued baby howler monkey, her path in life became clear. Fanny, a dedicated primatologist and founder of Yunkawasi, shares her transformative journey and the conservation efforts she spearheads in Peru. Delving beyond adorable primate encounters, Fanny paints a vivid picture of the intersection between conservation and community empowerment, underscoring how education and sustainable practices can lead to a harmonious existence between humans and wildlife.
Have you ever considered the impact your morning cup of coffee has on the world's primates? Fanny's stories reveal the intricate connection between our daily choices and the survival of species like the yellow-tailed woolly monkey. Her candid discussion on the hurdles faced by women in the field of primatology sheds light on a broader struggle for equality in science. The episode is a celebration of local heroes and a call to action, illustrating how supporting eco-friendly agriculture can safeguard our planet's biodiversity without breaking the bank.
Links:
Yunkawasi
From the moment Fanny Cornejo cradled a rescued baby howler monkey, her path in life became clear. Fanny, a dedicated primatologist and founder of Yunkawasi, shares her transformative journey and the conservation efforts she spearheads in Peru. Delving beyond adorable primate encounters, Fanny paints a vivid picture of the intersection between conservation and community empowerment, underscoring how education and sustainable practices can lead to a harmonious existence between humans and wildlife.
Have you ever considered the impact your morning cup of coffee has on the world's primates? Fanny's stories reveal the intricate connection between our daily choices and the survival of species like the yellow-tailed woolly monkey. Her candid discussion on the hurdles faced by women in the field of primatology sheds light on a broader struggle for equality in science. The episode is a celebration of local heroes and a call to action, illustrating how supporting eco-friendly agriculture can safeguard our planet's biodiversity without breaking the bank.
Links:
Yunkawasi
The future of conservation is bright because of people like today's guest. We're joined by Fanny Cornejo. She may be young. She's already a highly accomplished primatologist, though, and an anthropologist too, with her very own conservation organization. I already feel like I have not achieved in life. I'm Moni.
Justin Birkhoff:Boehm and I'm Justin Burkhoff. Welcome to the Protect Species podcast, where we celebrate biodiversity and converse with conservationists. So thanks for joining us today. Fanny, we're really excited to host you here at the zoo. We're really excited that you're here in the Global Center. Can you start by telling us a little bit about who you are, what you've accomplished so far that makes Monni feel so inferior and a little bit about your work? I took a shower this morning.
Dr. Monni Böhm:That would also make me feel inferior.
Fanny Cornejo:Thank you, Justin, Monni, and everyone here in Indianapolis for having me. This is so exciting and has made me think a lot about life and where I came from and where I'm going. I'm a biologist. By training I started working with animals, thinking, you know, inspired by documentaries in Dr Jane Goodall with the chimps, and I think a lot of little children are inspired in that way.
Fanny Cornejo:But it wasn't until I went to college and I volunteered at a local zoo where I got to take care of a baby howler monkey that had been rescued from the wildlife traffic. So I had to take care of it. I have a baby baby, you know. They feed it with a bottle and change diapers, with a little hole for the tail to come out, and it was absolutely adorable.
Fanny Cornejo:And while doing that we were trying to find information about the howler monkeys in Peru, and that is something that was very difficult to find at the moment it's like we couldn't find research that was done in the country. And then I came to understand wildlife trafficking and everything that comes with it and the importance of zoos, of places for the animals to come, be rehabilitated and to educate the public. So I think it was a sort of the combination of these things happening when I was 16 17 years old. That really marked the point in my life where I was like okay, I think this is my calling primates working with people, thinking of innovative ways of solving these issues that's fantastic, but you, you don't do howler monkeys in particular anymore.
Justin Birkhoff:So where did that transition happen?
Fanny Cornejo:So it all started with primates in general, like the lack of information. To discover that Peru is one of the top five countries with the most diversity of primates in the world was like what? Why is this not like information that everyone knows? Why am I what? 17 and just finding out about this? So in that sense, it came some sort of like my main interest to work with people to be able to get this knowledge. Because we would be working in areas where you have primates in the wild and ask people like, oh, do you know about primates? What primates do you know? And they would be like gorillas, chimps or what wildlife do you have in the rainforest behind your house.
Fanny Cornejo:Sometimes the answer would be tigers, lions, so animals that are not really from the area and that's related to a lack of understanding of what's available, some limitations on educational resources, but these are issues that can be solvable. It's not something that you have to invent something completely new. So it came along with this finding these small problems where we could have like very specific solutions. That is starting, kind of marking the paths of what later became. You can't see the organization that I lead and the path of what later became Yunkawasi, the organization that I lead and the philosophy of work that we have.
Dr. Monni Böhm:That's fantastic. You brought two little friends with you today. Can you just explain a little bit about your little mascots? There One's some sort of primate, the other one an Andean bear, maybe.
Justin Birkhoff:It's not a visual medium, Monni.
Dr. Monni Böhm:It's not a visual medium, so please describe.
Justin Birkhoff:We don't have viewers, do we not?
Fanny Cornejo:So for all the listeners right here with me, we have a yellow-tailed woolly monkey. This is a beautiful crochet splash toy made by local women that we work with in the Andes of Peru, and the yellow-tailed woolly monkey is a monkey that you probably have not heard about. It's because it's endemic of Peru, which means it's not found in any other country of the world and we've seen Peru is only found in the Andes, so this is an area that is very steep, very difficult to access and it's very cloudy. That also has the poetic name of monkey of the clouds, because usually it's surrounded by clouds in the morning when you're trying to follow them.
Fanny Cornejo:And this species, unfortunately, is critically endangered. So it means that it's on the verge. Like one more push and we will have lost this species forever and, as we know, extinction is forever. It's something that we cannot reverse. So this species as well is a symbol of the tropical landis. The tropical landis is an ecosystem that we don't hear often but that we should be very aware. Because of the tropical landis, we have the Amazon. Here is where all the water gets formed up hills that later comes down and forms the Amazon River and all these important rivers that give us this fantastic landscape that is the lowland Amazonian forest. So this monkey is part of this ecosystem and has important, very important role of maintaining the health of the rainforest.
Fanny Cornejo:So it's basically the gardener it's going to be eating the different fruits, then pooping them some kilometers afar, with enough matter around it to allow the little seeds to germinate. So the health of a forest may be determined by the presence of monkeys. We may have forests without monkeys or without other frugivores, and this may be an issue in the long term.
Dr. Monni Böhm:It's super cute as well, and also it stares right at you right now, justin, keeping to yourself I know keeping us on our toes. You kind of already mentioned a little bit the mountainous region in which this monkey lives, for example. What's it like to do fieldwork up there? It sounds like I mean conservation at the best of times is obviously an uphill struggle, but I mean, for you that seems to be like literally the case.
Fanny Cornejo:It was surprising and it does explain why the tropical land is, even though it's a biodiversity hotspot, sometimes referred to as the epicenter of biodiversity, because everything is unique, rare, endemic in these ecosystems. It's very much understudied because it's very difficult to get to the area and once you get there, to get to the exact place where you want to conduct your research is very physically challenging. I started working in the Amazon, so I was used to flat environment all the time very warm, very sunny. It rained and it was beautiful because the sun will dry you up quickly. And then I went to study this monkey and then suddenly I didn't see the sun for a month. My clothes would never dry.
Fanny Cornejo:My clothes would never, never dry. It was always humid, I was always cold. I remember taking notes and sometimes my handwriting was just like a single line because I couldn't move my hand how cold I was that's what my handwriting is usually like.
Fanny Cornejo:I don't have that excuse now we have better equipment, but it's really's good. But it's really challenging. It's not easy, but it comes with a lot of returns in terms like I've seen a monkey. That is so rare. This is an area where you basically lift a rock and every frog you find is a new species, like one of my colleagues is finding. Like at least a dozen new species in the tropical land each year. That's wild.
Justin Birkhoff:It is, it is. That's absolutely wild.
Fanny Cornejo:So it's worth doing it. And it's one of the places, like I mentioned, is where all the water is formed. So here you see the whole process of the clouds coming like bumping against the trees and producing all the dew, and then the rain and then the streams. So it's an amazing place to be. It's really magical, but it does come with a lot of challenges. But you know, you get to see this amazing species and also work with amazing people.
Dr. Monni Böhm:So you already mentioned some of the kind of women leaders in primatology that inspired you, right? But is it not traditionally still quite male? And what's it like as a young, upcoming female researcher to work on primates in this field?
Fanny Cornejo:This is a field that it does have a lot of presence of women, but, as we were discussing recently in the international primatological meeting that was held in Malaysia last August, a lot of the decision making positions are still majorly led by men, and this is changing.
Fanny Cornejo:So we have that as something positive.
Fanny Cornejo:But in developing countries and places where the efforts in terms of policies or in terms of representativeness or in the terms of investment, it's still a challenge In Peru, for example, it is not uncommon to do to the challenge that, due to the inherent challenges of being a woman, that the career path that you may follow in research or as a conservation practitioner may be halted because of harassment, because of sexism, because just existing as a woman sometimes can be difficult.
Fanny Cornejo:There are really awful statistics. A recent study well, not so recent, from 2014, from Kate Clancy from Harvard University showed that at least 75% of women that do fieldwork have suffered any sort of sexual harassment. So, yes, those numbers make you think what a lot of women go through. That sometimes tends to be normalized and not discussed openly in academic environments, which is happening now. So this is making a space that is safer for women and young women to follow career paths. But let's imagine about all the people, all the women that drop out because they just couldn't handle with all of this, that no one should be able to handle exactly.
Fanny Cornejo:So those are some of the things that comes to my mind yeah, it is a.
Justin Birkhoff:It's a difficult enough field as it is without adding that, that layer on top of it absolutely.
Dr. Monni Böhm:It's already all the challenges of being in that hilly system without sun right. If anybody, by the way, wondered why justin mumbled something about London, it's because that's where I used to live before, and Justin lived there for a while as well.
Justin Birkhoff:So we make jokes about it? Yeah, we enjoy the gray, it's just for the benefit of our listeners.
Fanny Cornejo:So you're almost ready to go to the tropical Andes then.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Almost ready. Yeah, london tropical Andes same same right.
Justin Birkhoff:Yeah, I've got to work on my endurance a little bit Cloudy foggy Cloudy foggy. I'm from San Francisco originally and so cloudy foggy is my life, or was my life. It's not anymore. So you mentioned this endemic species of monkey that you've focused on that is threatened. So what are some of the big threats that are facing it specifically?
Fanny Cornejo:but also wildlife as a whole in its natural terrain in the tropical Andes, one of the I'm trying to think of a word that is happy. Okay, I was thinking. One of the very frustrating things about the threats is that for the case of the yellow-tailed woolly monkey, the main threat is habitat loss, and these are monkeys that are arboreal, strictly arboreal. So that means that if you cut down the forest and the continuity of the forest, the monkeys are not going to be able to go from one patch to the other, so they're going to become locally extinct and all this process. The thing is that we're losing its habitat because of agricultural activities that are conducted by local people that live in the area, and this is happening because of lack of opportunities, because of unregulated and managed and sustainable development, because where people are not really given the opportunities for the investment to change the way how their economies work. So this is something that has solutions. So that's why it's frustrating.
Fanny Cornejo:It's not something that is completely out of our hands. It's not like a gigantic corporation that is loving with the government and you have to fight them. It's basically getting people to care so we can have the right investment to change traditional coffee plots into agroforestry plots to get local organizations of cocoa producers to sign conservation agreements so they won't expand the agricultural frontier and they will just increase the yield within their own plots if they get technical support. It's getting local consumers, getting local people, getting any one of you to wonder where did the coffee that I drink this morning come from? And then, based on that question, think about the impact of your decisions. If you're choosing to drink coffee that is coming from a local organization that has agroforestry and conservation agreements with the Peruvian government to protect the Yolting Woolly Monkey, well, maybe that it's a very exciting coffee to drink.
Justin Birkhoff:It is so this is worth the premium you pay for it.
Fanny Cornejo:Yes, but the other thing is that sometimes we shouldn't have a premium as well, because we need to make conservation mainstream and not this sort of product right now are accessible to an elite yeah, it's either an elite of knowledge or an elite in resources, but if we have, we need to have this change that we need to achieve as a society. It requires everything to be mainstream. We need everyone to really care and be able to access, and for prices to go down so that we don't have a premium. Then we have to increase the demand, so then we have to get everyone everyone to really think about this and care, and that is a huge challenge. I think that would be the most uphill road that right now we're walking through.
Justin Birkhoff:I mean it sounds like you have pretty much outlined what your kind of your community focus has been with with your you know. Your answer is that it's creating this buy in for local communities and really investing in what they're doing already and making sure that it's done sustainably. What are the tools that you're using to help bring people along with you in that journey?
Fanny Cornejo:It's something that it's also fairly easy. Okay, it is. It is Because, for example, we work hand in hand with local governments and local governments have their agricultural agencies. And for agriculture, what is the main thing that you need? You need water. That you need you need water and you need fertile soil. What are the basic ecosystem services that the rainforests are providing us Is fertile soil and water. It's the exact same thing.
Fanny Cornejo:So the thing is how you conceptualize this.
Fanny Cornejo:If you align them in a way where you start thinking about the sustainability of the water and the fertile soil in a way that is going to be also interesting in terms of investment, then you get the decision makers involved into this, and then, when you talk with local people, they of course, want to improve their livelihoods and they of course, want to have more dignified life and more opportunities, and sometimes the activities that they are doing is, again, only because they lack the opportunities on the initial investment.
Fanny Cornejo:So if you come with a project and you are like, hey, I want to work now with the sugar cane that you're producing and in this way, you're going to be limiting in some way how much you're going to be impacting the forest, which is good because, therefore, you will have more water and more fertile soil. And then, on the other hand, we're going to be providing you with technical support so you will know, along that way, how to improve your yield. And then we're also willing to work with you so you can actually give back, like signing a conservation agreement, so you may invest into patrolling the species of the protected area that is nearby you, or you may decide to do outreach work with your own villages and communities, to share what you are doing and why you're changing your way of working For local people.
Justin Birkhoff:It's like, of course, yes, yeah, it makes sense, it makes sense.
Fanny Cornejo:So right now, actually, the thing is to be able to get this to work, and that, unfortunately, is related with seed investment to be able to get the operations running and to make this sustainable. Seed investment to be able to get the operations running and to make this sustainable. And then also, at the end of the day, this wouldn't work if us as a society don't decide to start thinking about the products we consume. But then we can have the best possible conservation coffee or conservation chocolate and everything is amazing, but then no one is purchasing it and then all the investment that you did is not going to the, the purchasing power part is is always a big portion of it, especially for products that are, you know, being imported in the united states, where that that personalized connection is lost a little bit.
Fanny Cornejo:Yes, but you know we're working on it but that's a huge source of power that every single individual has, that sometimes we don't really realize that us as a consumers are so powerful into really determining the path that an entrepreneurship is going to have.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I know that's a really, that's a really strong message, because I think quite often people go like what can I do? It doesn't make any difference what I do Head in sand, but I like this. Everybody. Listen to what Fanny just said because that was. That's the path forward. There you go. We've solved the problem.
Justin Birkhoff:We didn't quite Done and dusted, but we're working on it.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Yay, excellent, we can all go home now.
Justin Birkhoff:This podcast is a production of the Global Center for Species Survival at the Indianapolis Zoo. We record all the episodes in the Beetle Financial Media Studio made possible by a generous gift from Eric and Elaine Beatle.
Dr. Monni Böhm:This talk about the kind of people component of conservation leads us very neatly into our next segment right. Justin I mean, we've already talked. You already talked a little bit about the wonderful people that you encountered in your work with the very awesome monkey that now no longer looks at Justin, so that's good, it doesn't make him nervous anymore. Can you tell us a little bit about your work with Yunkawasi and the people you're working with and your goals?
Fanny Cornejo:So Yunkawasi was founded by my mom and me back in, by the way, very adorable, keeping it in the family uh, it's. Yeah, it was very interesting because my my mom, her interests were around capacity building and conservation education and at the time I was working with uh, research of endangered species and protected area management, and then we were like click.
Justin Birkhoff:There's a natural pairing there.
Fanny Cornejo:Exactly Right, and this is something that can be very complementary, and she used to work mainly with water before coming with work with monkeys and me pushing her into this path as well and she was very dynamic and very inspirational.
Fanny Cornejo:So at the beginning of the organization, to you know, getting all the positiveness to get an operation like this moving forward, because this is basically creating an organization from zero in terms of investment of people, of what are we going to do, it was basically following our dreams and our dream was to be able to work with communities in a way where we were extremely horizontal, extremely respectful and extremely empathetic about what are the actual desires, wishes, visions of development that local people may have, because in that way, we could propose projects together that will make sense to local people have.
Fanny Cornejo:Because in that way, we could propose projects together that will make sense to local people that, at the end of the day, are the owners of the land and the leaders of any conservation activity that is happening on the ground. So that was something key for us and it seems very intuitively that that's something that should be done. But sometimes it's very difficult in terms of interculturality, really being able to really put yourself in the shoes of another person and to understand what, for an indigenous people that are in the border of Peru and Brazil, what is happiness or what is development. It's very different from some of the views that us folks that grew up in cities may have, so you know, to be able to have that path and in that way, put together initiatives. It's something that Yunkawasi has at its core, and 15 years have passed. We are now a much larger team we're almost 30 people, and I'm extremely proud and thankful for each one of them. It's a very diverse team as well in terms of professions.
Fanny Cornejo:We have, like economists and lawyers and communicators, anthropologists, forestry engineers basically, you name it any profession, because conservation is about people, about people making decisions, about people changing the way that they are living, about giving back to your community. So there's a space for everyone. So in that way, right now we're working uh, basically all the ecosystems of peru, from the marine environment to the high Andes, down to the tropical rainforests of the Amazon what are their hopes and dreams in terms of improving their livelihoods in a way that is respectful and that makes sure that our ecosystem services and nature is going to prevail through time? So that's like, I guess, in a nutshell.
Dr. Monni Böhm:That's quite an enormous nutshell, phenomenal.
Justin Birkhoff:And I think one of the things you mentioned is that that horizontal approach is that co-planning approach of you know what, what your thoughts are on a subject is one thing is like, but what what somebody's lived reality is is is very different, and that needs to be a big portion of it. But also that you're, as your organization has grown and matured and looking at different pieces of what you're doing. Is that not everyone is the biologist right Like. There's different pieces and there's different roles within this. You know, flourishing organization that is doing meaningful conservation for a large group of people from different parts of Peru is that everyone has a different skill set that they bring to the table and they're all focused at the same mission at the end, which is absolutely phenomenal.
Dr. Monni Böhm:It's also very ecosystem focused, so it's like system focus, which is like what you should really be doing, right. Everything matters and also lots of nice mention of water.
Justin Birkhoff:Oh, fresh water. We do love fresh water here.
Dr. Monni Böhm:We do love fresh water a lot. I mean, we've got it on the table here, right, it keeps us running.
Justin Birkhoff:So one of the things you mentioned with your mother is that idea of capacity building. So not only capacity building for the communities, but one of the things that you seem to be focused on quite a bit as you've you know, as you've gone through this is building capacity for primatologists in Peru. So why is that something that's important to you, and what? What are the ways that you realize that?
Fanny Cornejo:Going back to the story of this baby, holler monkey.
Justin Birkhoff:Did the baby holler monkey have a name?
Fanny Cornejo:Yes, Fika. Excellent Her name from Federica. Her short name was Fika. Excellent Her name from Federica. Her short name was Fika.
Justin Birkhoff:Excellent.
Fanny Cornejo:Okay, cool. So not having enough information at that moment made us realize that we need to find different ways to get researchers to start studying the almost 50 species of monkeys that we have in Peru and to start getting basic information distribution, what do they eat? How many are left? But even though this seems to be very simple questions that we should be able to answer for anything, for this little guy here, for the yellow-tailed woolly monkey, I don't know how many are left. I mean, yeah that's I mean.
Fanny Cornejo:It's an interesting question, because there are so many species that fall into that category where we think, oh yeah, it's a monkey, we should definitely know how many there are exactly there's not even a really good estimate yep, and it has a lot to do with, yes, resources, investment, but also about people to be able to go do the research, and people that are appropriately trained and they have had the opportunities to learn from different specialists and different methods to be able to carry these activities and to lead them eventually. So back in 2011, with Dr Eker Heymann from the German Primate Center, my mom and I, we started thinking seriously about how can we create a space that people from Peru that, because of the limitations of language or the limitation of resources, so they cannot go to other countries to study or to participate in meetings or workshops, how can we close that bridge? So we've started creating what at the beginning, we called the Symposiums of Primatology in Peru and later became the Congresses of Primatology in Peru, the Congresses of Primateology in Peru, where we would like ask funding for, like from everyone to get the top specialists that could speak or mumble some Spanish to the country so they could give talks and they could carry workshops and they would have like in-field training sessions in a whole diversity of topics and providing spaces. And this became fantastic. We had five of them. They had hundreds of people attend these meetings. They were, most of the time either fully funded or extremely affordable, and we also provided travel bursaries so people from different remote areas of Peru could come. We also got communities to join so they could have this interaction between researchers and communities. So in that way to provide a space for opportunities, and it was wonderful.
Fanny Cornejo:A lot of the of the students that attended some of these meetings connected there with with whom later was their master advisor in Brazil, for example, or in the US, or started, you know, following a path on bioacoustics that they didn't think that they were interested on, but they learned in the workshop about bioacoustics that they didn't think that they were interested in, but they learned in the workshop about bioacoustics. So it was amazing. And something that I would like to highlight that was even the most amazing thing was the response from the primatological community, because I was very young at that age when all of this started. So I was like a 20-something person, be like, we're going to do this amazing thing in Peru. We need you to come.
Fanny Cornejo:We have almost no resources, so we had so many professors from universities all over the world that will be like okay, I can get my department to fund my trip and then I can bring some resources and then we can have a molecular biology workshop in the museum in Peru so people can learn what is molecular biology at the beginning of that, what 2011, for example. So we provided the sort of things and the response from people was amazing. So it really makes you think about people are seeking also this opportunity where they can give back. So it was. I think it's strategic for us to find a place to channel all of these energies and because of the pandemic, we halted these meetings, but next year we're going to have Shameless plug, go for it.
Fanny Cornejo:Yes, yeah, yeah, we're going to have that and it's happening because of a very special event that I'm going to share with you guys. Is that this monkey that has basically led every decision that I have made in my adult life the yellow tabloid monkey. This monkey was thought to be extinct. It was discovered originally by Alexander von Humboldt in 1812, but he never saw an alive one. He only saw the skins that were used on horses. Then, throughout centuries, people saw one skin here, one skin there, but the scientific community had never seen one alive and people didn't really know anything about the species, where it was or what was going on. So back in 1974, the Indianapolis Prize winner, russell Mittermeier, went to Peru. He was very young and wearing very little shorts. He came up to the Andes to find this monkey, and he did, and he showed the scientific community that this monkey existed. He rediscovered the yellow-tailed woolly monkey, and that was 50 years ago.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Did I get that right? Did I click through some?
Justin Birkhoff:quick maths yeah, 50 years ago, in 2024. Look, you're doing the math. Check you out.
Fanny Cornejo:Exactly so. That's why next year is a year of full-on celebrations. That's phenomenal For the 50th anniversary of the Yolti Wuli Monkey. We're getting the Peruvian Congress to declare the National Day of the Yolti Wuli Monkey.
Justin Birkhoff:Yes.
Fanny Cornejo:As well, and we're going to have our third Congress of the Peruvian Logical Society in Peru. To celebrate that, as a space for sharing the research, we're going to have a festival. We're going to have a meeting where all the communities doing community-led conservation work are going to come together. So it's going to be amazing. You all guys are invited, oh, this sounds wonderful.
Justin Birkhoff:It's going to be all may so all may.
Fanny Cornejo:Uh, we're going to be working on this and also, I believe, within the napoli zoo, we're going to be working on a documentary about the yuletide woolly monkey as well that, so it's going to be a lot of fun.
Justin Birkhoff:that sounds absolutely phenomenal, phenomenal, and I'm assuming Russ Mittenmeyer will be part of this whole celebration.
Fanny Cornejo:Oh, of course he's the centerpiece of it all, the centerpiece.
Justin Birkhoff:That sounds absolutely phenomenal and actually that leads really nicely into where we wanted to go. Next, the reason that you're here with us today doing this in-person interview which is great we we can do these remotely, but it's always great to have people in the beetle financial media studio is you're the winner of our inaugural emerging conservationist award, which is absolutely phenomenal. That's great. So this word is new this year, hence you being the inaugural winner. Um recognizes early career conservationists. It's part of the Indianapolis Prize festivities and all of that, and so this is kind of a weird question. But what did this recognition mean to you?
Fanny Cornejo:This is something that I was not expecting, especially at this age, at this time of my career. I was not expecting, especially at this age, at this time of my career. I was not expecting to be recognized in this way. It feels like. Well, in the conservation world, there's no like unique solution for everything, because we work with people. Conservation is about people.
Justin Birkhoff:Yeah.
Fanny Cornejo:So the solutions are infinite the ideas, the approaches and the thing is that when you're working with people, these are long-term processes. These are things that you don't get to see results up until five or 10 or 15 years, 20 years later. So, because it involves behavior change, it involves decision making in very long term. So you are all the time wondering is this working.
Fanny Cornejo:Is this working? You are all the time finding ways to measure your impact and to have sensible indicators, but that is something that, all the time, you're wondering. So, through this recognition, it meant that a lot of the most brilliant minds in the conservation world got to look at the work that Yunkawas is doing in Peru and, after reviewing all that work, they decided that it's good.
Justin Birkhoff:So for me, this is like it's better than good, give good. So for me, this is better than good give yourself credit it's much better than good. See monty lived in the uk is like it could be worse.
Justin Birkhoff:No, I mean it's like it realizes, like yeah, no, it is incredible work, and so you know it's it's. You know it's very humbling to be recognized by by your peers, and I imagine it's. You know it's very humbling to be recognized by by your peers, and I imagine it's even more so to be recognized by your sources of inspiration, but your role model.
Fanny Cornejo:So, in that way, it was amazing, because it felt like we're in the right path, because sometimes you get to think like, am I doing good?
Fanny Cornejo:Is this, is this make sense, or is this a good idea? But to be able to show the world and get, in some sort of way, this validation that, yes, this is this, makes sense or is this a good idea, but to be able to show the world and get, in some sort of way, this validation that, yes, this is good work, then that has been extremely inspirational for me and the team. Especially for the team because, um, we are like almost 30 people and everyone is really passionate and on the ground, like, as we speak, we are conducting this workshop with indigenous peoples in northern peru, then we're working with local communities creating a protected area in the central landings of peru, and there are team members right now that are in the very steep hills that we were discussing before, probably freezing right now, very high altitude in some places, working on something that they believe in and for me to be able to share with them. It's like and the world believes it too, it's, it's simply amazing and inspiring that's absolutely phenomenal so fanny as our inaugural emerging conservationists um.
Dr. Monni Böhm:We've set the bar very high in our first year. To be quite honest, good luck to everybody who comes after you do you have any advice to share with other young people who might find themselves in a similar situation, who are already working in conservation or just starting their careers? What would you say to them?
Fanny Cornejo:Something that it may be very difficult to maintain, but it's to be optimistic. And I said difficult because when you are in this world, you know the facts, you know the statistics, you know the trends, you know how the different world events may be affecting what you're doing, being like political decisions, changes, or being climate change, that it's making everything much more complicated at every level. So being optimistic is one thing, is to really focus on what you're able to achieve, and at the beginning it may be small steps, so you may feel like this is not enough. I feel all the time that this is not enough, but I try to focus a lot on the small wins that we may have and to have like a clear path of like small wins and then, if we achieve this, then we can achieve the next step that we may have.
Fanny Cornejo:And to have like a clear path of like a small wins and then you achieve this and we can achieve the next step. So sometimes this is easy to get kind of lost on desperation because you feel like the time to act is now. You feel like the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis these are things happening now. So it's like now, what can I do that could be impactful in the now? So, for your mental health and for being able to maintain things on a straight line, that can Feel that you're really going upwards is focus on the small wins that you may have in a strategic way. Then, of course, being passionate about what you're doing. Because you're doing something that you're passionate about, everything feels like it's amazing.
Fanny Cornejo:I have the enormous privilege of working on something that inspires me every minute of the day. It, I mean, it has its ups and lows, but being able to work on something that I truly believe in and it fulfills me in every sense is just amazing. It's, it doesn't feel like a burden. It feels like a huge opportunity every day to be able to give back, to be able to see these amazing animals in the wild, to be able to meet, and to meet these amazing people from the local communities that we work and get to know their stories. It's like the amount of experience that you have is just fantastic. So it's so, having the passion for something and choosing that passion it's something that's really important and can drive the amount of energy that you may put into something. So I think I may focus on those two.
Justin Birkhoff:I think those are good ones to focus on. I have one more question. Oh, okay.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Sorry, there he is again.
Justin Birkhoff:I know it's terrible. It's both two of us. So my question is you know you've founded this organization. You've been running and organizing and doing all this amazing work for the last 15 years. Do you remember the moment that you first saw one of these monkeys in the wild?
Fanny Cornejo:Oh, of course, the yellow-tailed woolly monkey. So it has this poetic name of monkey of the clouds because it lives in, in this very cloudy environment, the mountain forest of the tropical Andes. And the first time I went to see them was after working in the Amazon, where it's fairly easy in remote areas, but it's fairly easy there, to see monkeys, and you can see them and see their colors and see how bright they are and all of these things. And you can see them and see their colors and see how bright they are and all of these things. But then I was in this forest that was so cloudy I couldn't see, like I don't know, 10 feet from me it was so cloudy, so dark, even though it was the middle of the day and we were walking in this very steep environment really thinking about ah, this is so muddy, this is so cold, this is so rainy, where are the monkeys? Because Amazonian monkeys, they go to sleep when the weather is like that, but the weather here is always like that, so what's up with these guys?
Fanny Cornejo:And then suddenly I was with these local guides and then suddenly we saw the movement and then it was very cinematographic because it was all all dark.
Fanny Cornejo:And then suddenly you saw a shadow approaching and the branches of the trees moving and the shadows started to surround you and they have this vocalization that sounds like a little bark of, like the bark of a puppy that they do when they get a little bit nervous. So they got nervous and they started doing this bark and they were like these are yellow, what else could they be? But I cannot really see them. I see the shapes, but I cannot see the color of the white muscle that they have. I cannot see the yellow tuft of pubic hair. I cannot see the yellow tail or the bright mahogany color that they have in their fur, but they must be. And it wasn't until a few weeks later, actually, that I could actually appreciate all the colors. For a while, I think. For the first few days I there were like the shadows, the monkeys of the shadows and the clouds. I couldn't see them properly, but it was just so like mystical, magical.
Dr. Monni Böhm:I don't know a lot of words that's super magical, fantastic, that's wonderful and a very good way to wrap up this, this amazing podcast. Thank you again, fanny. We're so happy to have you here and I think it's fair to say that we really, we really absolutely love you. I mean literally. I'm literally sitting here fangirling.
Fanny Cornejo:Like crazy. Thank you so much.
Justin Birkhoff:Yeah, we really do appreciate you. You know coming and taking the time out of this wonderful adventure and, as Monty said, you know, as the inaugural winner, you set the bar pretty high and we're just ecstatic for you to be here and to be able to help support all the wonderful work that you're already doing and your optimism is just infectious.
Dr. Monni Böhm:Yes, it's really beautiful.
Fanny Cornejo:Thank you very much, thank you for your kind words and for having me Very happy to share this story, and thank you.