Yunnan villagers make the most of monkey business

Road to conservation

Huang, 43, has been familiar with the Phayre's leaf monkey since he was a child.

With its grayish-blue fur, light-colored areas around the eyes and mouth, and a tail nearly twice the length of its body, the langur has long been a hidden gem in the mountainous forests surrounding Mangshi in Dehong Dai and Jingpo autonomous prefecture.

As a plot of collective forest allocated to Huang's family is part of the langur's natural habitat, he often saw the monkeys while herding cattle or collecting wood on the mountain when he was young. "We didn't know their scientific name then, and neither did we know they were rare and endangered," he said. "We called them 'gray monkeys'."

In 2016, one of Huang's friends, Yang Kaisuo, returned to the village after working elsewhere for many years, and tried to see the langurs on the nearby mountain but failed. He later discovered that due to deforestation and habitat destruction, the monkeys were being squeezed out of their natural habitats and forced to constantly relocate to the remaining forested areas.

Yang was inspired to bring back the gray monkeys that had lived in the area for generations. Understanding that protecting the monkeys required safeguarding their habitats, Yang asked Huang and another friend to initiate voluntary forest patrols.

Their early efforts to persuade villagers to protect the leaf monkeys and refrain from forest destruction yielded limited results. It was during a conversation with a local wildlife photographer that Yang conceived a more effective approach. He began helping the photographer track the langurs and capture awe-inspiring moments in 2016. The photos finally put the enigmatic creature in the limelight.

More photographers came, which in turn brought more media attention to the langurs.