Trees for Slender Loris, India

Thevangu, as Slender loris is called in Tamil, is commonly found in the tropical scrub and deciduous forests as well as the dense hedgerow plantations bordering farmlands of Southern India and Sri Lanka.
As arboreal mammals they spend most of their life on the canopy of trees, feeding on leaves, flowers, insects and sometimes bird’s eggs. They are known to prefer moving across the trees, rarely coming to the ground, thus requiring a continuous canopy to move around the forest, whether to seek food or socialize.

In recent years there’s been a lorises habitat loss caused by loss of trees and vegetation causing huge stress on their food, shelter and security against predators, which has resulted in population decreasing and consequently threatening this species existence. Depending on a continued canopy of the forests to move around, habitat fragmentation also leads to the isolation of sections of the population (WWF India).

Grey slender lorises are listed under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of India, 1972, according them the highest level of legal protection and on Appendix II of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Besides the destruction of their habitat, lorises suffer a threat from poachers due to the misplaced belief that these animals have magical and medicinal powers, but also do to the capture for illegal pet trade.

Conservation action recommended by researchers includes checking the habitat loss and restoring the degraded habitats of Slender Loris (Dr Arvind Singh, Ph.D., "Save the Slender Loris Before it is Gone Extinct").

Trees for Slender Loris aims to do just that, trough the plantation of native trees to provide habitats not only for slender loris, but for a wide variety of wild animals such, wild boar, panther, jackal, Indian gaur, spotted deer, elephant, monkey, Indian porcupine, many species of reptiles and birds.