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- The destruction of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest has created numerous remoted forest patches surrounded by pastures, cities or monoculture plantations, with critical penalties for northern muriquis, the biggest primate within the Americas.
- Thought-about critically threatened, northern muriquis depend upon connectivity between totally different teams to outlive; when females attain sexual maturity, they migrate to different teams, guaranteeing the species’ genetic range.
- In Minas Gerais state, a pioneering undertaking by the Muriqui Institute of Biodiversity and Comuna do Ibitipoca is working to rescue remoted muriquis, launch them right into a restored forest space, and create forest corridors to permit them to maneuver round.
- Conservationists say personal landowners, corresponding to Comuna do Ibitipoca, will probably be key to creating these corridors, on condition that 80% of the remaining patches of Atlantic Forest lie inside personal lands.
Alone within the woods for greater than 5 years, Esmeralda wrapped her lengthy arms round her personal physique in an try to not neglect the sensation of a hug. 300 kilometers, almost 190 miles, to the south, brothers Bertolino and Luna had solely one another to change affection with and attempt to keep in mind what it meant to be a northern muriqui, despite the fact that the absence of females appeared to sign the top of that small and remoted inhabitants in southern Minas Gerais state, Brazil. For the biggest primate within the Americas, there’s nothing it could do in opposition to the habitat fragmentation that strangles its possibilities of survival.
It was 2017, and researchers from the Muriqui Institute of Biodiversity (MIB) had been making a primary and pressing try to collect these remoted northern muriquis, Brachyteles hypoxanthus, a species of woolly spider monkey. Esmeralda had lived alone for 5 years in a patch of the Atlantic Forest patch within the mining district of Esmeraldas de Ferro, till she was captured and translocated to the forest fragment of Mata do Luna, within the municipality of Santa Rita do Ibitipoca, the place the 2 males had been residing. There was hope that the three people may work together and even perhaps start to breed, however the years of solitude had taken an excessive amount of of a toll on the feminine.
“As a result of she had been alone for 5 years, she had many social points,” says Priscila Pereira, a researcher on the MIB. “For instance, what the muriquis do when it comes to sexual conduct, she used to do to horses as a result of there have been solely horses the place she got here from.” Muriquis produce a sort of neigh, and maybe the similarity of the sound contributed to Esmeralda’s confusion. Researchers noticed this as a merciless signal of how deeply she had been disconnected from her personal nature.
Oblivious to her friends, Esmeralda twice fled the Mata do Luna space. In her final escape, she disappeared fully. The researchers suspect she most likely died within the midst of an outbreak of yellow fever. In that case, it was a tragic consequence, however one which spurred a pioneering initiative to save lots of the species. In 2018, the Muriqui Home was constructed, targeted on resocializing the remoted monkeys to permit them to efficiently reintegrate into nature. The power is right this moment residence to 5 grownup and two younger northern muriquis.
The story that led to this promising residence for muriquis begins a lot earlier, within the Eighties, with two occasions that had been unconnected at first: the acquisition of a farm by two cousins who needed to “let nature regenerate” and which gave rise to the Comuna do Ibitipoca undertaking; and the arrival of a U.S. researcher to rural Minas Gerais, searching for to look at the lives of those giant New World primates up shut.
The Analysis
Like most primates, northern muriquis depend upon robust social relationships, residing in teams of as much as 60 people. They’re discovered within the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, stay excessive within the cover, the place they transfer nimbly from department to department, feeding on fruit, flowers and many leaves. But all of those traits, so attribute of apes, cover a really explicit behavioral ecology.
“Muriquis are completely calm; they haven’t any hierarchy,” says primatologist Karen Strier, who remembers how the extraordinarily peaceable conduct of the muriquis caught her consideration from the start.
Strier is at present a professor on the College of Wisconsin-Madison and analysis director of Instituto Protect Muriqui, which manages the Feliciano Miguel Abdala Non-public Pure Heritage Reserve (RPPN by its Portuguese acronym) in Caratinga, Minas Gerais. In June 1982, she was simply 23 years outdated when she set foot on Brazilian soil for the primary time and got here head to head with the biggest primate within the Western Hemisphere.
“My curiosity was to check theories of social evolution in a [primate] species that had not been studied very exactly but,” Strier says in good Portuguese with a powerful English accent. Till the Eighties, howler monkeys (Alouatta spp.) had been the one New World primates whose social conduct had been studied intimately.
Strier started the primary in-depth examine of a inhabitants of muriquis, which right this moment permits us to know the particularities of the species in some element. In most primate species, males are usually bigger than females, each when it comes to total physique dimension and canine tooth, one in every of their predominant weapons. Most likely due to this benefit, males within the primate world normally show dominant conduct over females. In northern muriquis, nonetheless, each sexes are the identical dimension, which implies the females aren’t simply coerced or managed.
One of many first issues Strier realized, and which she considers her most necessary discovering, is that there’s no hierarchy or aggression between sexes on the earth of the muriquis. There’s not even aggression inside the similar intercourse. Northern muriquis do have small fights, however they’re surprisingly peaceable and affectionate creatures. For instance, they usually contact and maintain one another for lengthy durations simply to point out affection.
Strier additionally notes that the females are accountable for the species’ genetic range. Close to reproductive age, between 5 and seven years outdated, they go away their native teams looking for new households and, consequently, looking for companions that aren’t so carefully associated, which ensures assorted genes for brand spanking new generations. Whereas this motion is constructive from a genetic viewpoint, it has critical implications for the conservation of muriquis: for teams of those primates, geographic isolation is a loss of life sentence.
The destiny of northern muriquis is intrinsically linked to that of the Atlantic Forest, because the species is endemic to the biome; that’s, it’s discovered nowhere else on Earth. This has made muriquis one of many many victims of centuries of forest destruction alongside the Brazilian coast. At present, there are an estimated 1,000 northern muriquis within the wild, unfold throughout 12 places. Solely in 5 of them is the variety of people thought of adequate for them to have a very good probability of survival in the long run.
On this state of affairs, the females’ departure from remoted muriqui teams — a pure and needed side for his or her ecology in wholesome circumstances — turns into an issue. They abandon their group earlier than having any offspring and go looking for different teams, however habitat fragmentation and the good distance between populations might condemn females to a wandering and solitary life. That’s what occurred to Esmeralda.
The tragic destiny of those females can be a nasty omen for his or her native teams, which, because of the similar distance and panorama fragmentation, miss out on the arrival of females from different teams, and step by step decline.
As Strier was conducting her pioneering examine within the Feliciano Miguel Abdala RPPN, the small and unknown group of northern muriquis that inhabited Mata do Luna confronted precisely that downside.
By probability, Mata do Luna survived intact the financial cycles of espresso and livestock farming within the Minas Gerais area often known as Zona da Mata, and a small fragment of main forest was preserved. Regardless of being lower than 3 km (1.9 mi) north of the boundary of Ibitipoca State Park, Mata do Luna was fully remoted by livestock pasture, successfully performing as an open-air jail for the muriquis, which had nowhere else to go.
In 2000, studies from residents led MIB researchers to the forest fragment, the place they confirmed the presence of 10 northern muriquis. Seven years later, solely two people remained: brothers Bertolino and Luna. The latter had by no means even lived with females since reaching sexual maturity, and subsequently by no means discovered learn how to copulate — one other social consequence of isolation.
When businessman Renato Machado discovered in 2000 of the presence of northern muriquis in Mata do Luna, he determined to behave. First, he purchased the forest space the place the animals had been residing, after which the encompassing lands. Machado is the creator of a rising high-end resort growth referred to as Comuna do Ibitipoca, which additionally invests in regeneration of pure areas within the area. The event started in 1984, with the acquisition of the Engenho farm, and now covers almost 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) — 4 occasions the dimensions of the neighboring Ibitipoca State Park.
Comuna do Ibitipoca’s mission, Machado says, is to allocate 98% of the land he bought to restoration and occupy solely 2% with resort services. Within the “pristine” portion of Comuna do Ibitipoca, their purpose is to have one other sort of visitor: native wildlife.
Mata do Luna is an effective instance. After shopping for it on the flip of the millennium, when it was an remoted fragment of lower than 35 hectares (86 acres), Comuna do Ibitipoca invested within the buy of pastures that surrounded the forest. Twenty years later, about 200 hectares (almost 500 acres) within the Mata do Luna space are present process regeneration.
“We purchase them, then we take away the cattle and defend it from hearth,” Machado says. From then on, nature itself does the work of restoring the realm with vegetation, little by little. In locations the place degradation was extra critical, nonetheless, Machado says he acknowledges the necessity for human intervention by means of planting. “It’s a long-term undertaking,” he provides.
Whereas Mata do Luna is on its strategy to restoration, for muriquis Luna and Bertolino, time was operating out. In 2017, the brothers had been the final survivors within the forest fragment, and after the unsuccessful try to combine Esmeralda, it grew to become evident to each biologists and Comuna do Ibitipoca workers {that a} stronger administration intervention was wanted in order that the inhabitants of muriquis within the Ibitipoca area may have an opportunity. That’s when the Muriqui Home undertaking was born.
A house to resocialize the biggest primate within the Americas
The land the place Muriqui Home was constructed sits in Vila do Mogol, within the district of Conceição de Ibitipoca, and appears nothing like a typical captivity facility. The 6-hectare (15-acre) lot is ringed by a low-intensity electrical fence, which prevents the muriquis from escaping. Inside, a focus of bushes on 2 hectares (5 acres) — some 3,000 bushes planted by the undertaking workers — present the meals that the muriquis want.
Along with the small forest, which has feeding platforms and repair trails, the realm additionally has a big caged enclosure the place the animals are saved for quarantine and acclimatization, and a small home that serves because the headquarters for MIB researchers. A calendar on the wall marks out necessary cycles which are monitored, corresponding to when the females go into warmth, and when reproductive exercise happens among the many muriquis.
The Muriqui Institute of Biodiversity was created in 2015 to assist and perform actions for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity, particularly these affecting muriquis and their habitat. In 2016, the NGO began a partnership with Comuna do Ibitipoca, initially targeted on monitoring the muriquis within the Mata do Luna area. Because the work developed and funding was wanted for resocializing the primates to ensure their survival, Comuna do Ibitipoca noticed the necessity for the Muriqui Home, and invested round 1 million reais ($211,000) to construct the power.
In 2019, the primary northern muriquis arrived. Two females, Ecológica and Socorro, got here from the Mata do Sossego RPPN, a fraction of Atlantic Forest positioned about 400 km [250 mi] north in Minas Gerais. The 2 had been chosen as a result of they had been of migrating age and had nowhere to go. Brothers Bertolino and Luna had been additionally introduced in.
In November 2020, one other feminine, Nena, joined them. Later that month, the group grew with the arrival of Elliot, the offspring of Ecológica and Bertolino, and the primary northern muriqui born in captivity.
In late 2021, one other particular person joined the Muriqui Home group. Three-year-old Odin was discovered within the municipality of Caratinga, alone and weak. After a couple of month of rehabilitation at a wildlife screening heart in Belo Horizonte, the Minas Gerais state capital, specialists from the Nationwide Motion Plan (PAN) for the Conservation of Atlantic Forest Primates and the Collared Sloth (PANPPMA) determined that the best choice was to ship him to the enclosure at Comuna do Ibitipoca.
“If we need to defend the muriquis, we’ve to do administration,” says MIB researcher Fabiano Melo, a primatologist and professor on the Federal College of Viçosa (UFV).
With seven people, Muriqui Home is right this moment the one captive facility that manages northern muriqui people and the closest to pure circumstances that these primates have. Nearly as good as it’s, it’s not meant to be a everlasting place, however slightly an important step for all animals residing there to return to nature in sustainable circumstances — that’s, in a scenario the place their teams can thrive and develop. And “teams,” within the plural, are simply what is required.
For northern muriquis to as soon as once more have a future within the Ibitipoca space, two totally different teams of people should coexist at an in depth and linked distance. Then, females will be capable of migrate between the teams and assure the existence of the native muriqui inhabitants as an entire. That’s how the northern muriquis studied by Strier on the Feliciano Miguel Abdala RPPN had been in a position to survive. Within the early Eighties, the RPPN was residence to 2 muriqui teams, which used to change females each technology. At present, 5 teams of muriquis stay within the area.
The MIB researchers plan to collect sufficient people at Muriqui Home to launch at the very least two teams of 10-12 people every in Mata do Luna. And every little thing signifies that they may hit their goal. Within the area of Peçanha, additionally in Minas Gerais, a bunch of muriquis faces a scenario just like that skilled by the people of Mata do Luna just a few many years in the past.
“I see Peçanha as probably the most important state of affairs right this moment,” Melo says. “It’s a small group of 15 people completely remoted in a 500-hectare [1,240-acre] forest space.” With none intervention, this group would additionally slowly decline. So the MIB’s plan is to step by step seize the people from Peçanha, combine them into the Muriqui Home group, and type the teams wanted to make the Ibitipoca space a house for northern muriquis as soon as once more.
“Machado’s dream is to have 500 muriquis right here in 50 years,” Melo says, recalling a dialog he had with the Comuna de Ibitipoca founder years in the past. “We obtained off to a very good begin. Inside 40 years I believe we received’t have 500 but, however we will simply have 100 muriquis right here.”
The conservation of northern muriquis
With an estimated inhabitants of fewer than 1,000 people, the northern muriqui is taken into account critically Threatened on the IUCN Pink Checklist, with the principle risk to the species being the fragmentation and lack of its habitat. Recognized northern muriqui populations are distributed throughout 12 areas, beginning on the state border between Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais, in Itatiaia Nationwide Park, and sprinkled throughout Minas Gerais and into Espírito Santo and southern Bahia, within the Higher Cariri advanced.
5 of these 12 areas are listed as priorities for the conservation of the species, in line with an evaluation by the Nationwide Motion Plan for the Conservation of Muriquis, or PAN Muriquis, which resulted in 2015. These websites have the biggest identified populations of northern muriquis, with greater than 100 people every. They’re locates within the Feliciano Miguel Abdala RPPN, in Rio Doce State Park, and Serra do Brigadeiro State Park, all in Minas Gerais; a sequence of fragments of assorted sizes within the area of Santa Maria de Jetibá, in Espírito Santo; and Caparaó Nationwide Park, on the border between the 2 states. At present disconnected, these forest fragments are 70-120 km (40-75 mi) away from their nearest neighbors. For probably the most half, they’re separated by a patchwork of forest fragments and rural properties.
The areas with probably the most threatened populations embody Ibitipoca (now being made safer because of Muriqui Home) and Peçanha (which wasn’t even included within the unique nationwide motion plan, as solely formally confirmed in 2020). Each are on the record of administration priorities for the MIB group.
The primary cycle of the muriqui nationwide motion plan ran from 2010-2015, the results of the work of the primary worldwide committee organized for the conservation and administration of the species, and was prolonged for an additional two years. The final purpose of the motion plan was to enhance the conservation standing of the species by at the very least one stage on the IUCN Pink Checklist, from critically endangered to endangered. To this finish, the plan set out 10 particular targets and 58 actions to attain its final goal. Formally accomplished in 2017, 46% of the actions supplied for within the PAN had been totally carried out, whereas the opposite 54% noticed some type of progress.
In 2018, the PAN Muriquis was changed by the Nationwide Motion Plan for Atlantic Forest Primates and Collared Sloth (PPMA), scheduled to finish in 2023. These plans had been important for bringing collectively a number of actors within the conservation of muriquis and enabled the group of important workshops and conferences. One in every of them happened in 2020 at Comuna do Ibitipoca, gathering researchers corresponding to Melo (a member of the PAN Technical Advisory Group) and managers and brokers from companies such because the Nationwide Middle for Analysis and Conservation of Brazilian Primates (CPB), one of many arms of ICMBio.
“We introduced within the members of the CPB, the Brazilian company accountable for these points associated to [primate] fauna, and thru a dialogue we consolidated a proper, protocolized administration technique that describes what we must always do after we discover an remoted feminine, an remoted male, an remoted group of males or females, or an remoted blended group,” Melo says. “So right this moment, we all know precisely what we’ve to do,” he provides, referring to the doc “Protocols for Analysis and Administration of Muriquis,” written by 31 specialists and revealed in October 2021.
The protocol particulars all of the instruments needed for the conservation of muriquis, starting from managing the animals themselves to measures for assessing habitat high quality — a necessary software for establishing future corridors.
“We have now an bold undertaking to ascertain corridors between Brigadeiro, Caparaó, Sossego and Caratinga,” Melo says. “We’re searching for nationwide and worldwide funders. We need to begin by connecting Caratinga and Sossego, which might be a 45-kilometer-long [28-mile] hall and is already partially established because of authorized reserve forest areas and PPAs [permanent preservation areas].” The cash could be used to encourage rural landowners to reforest the areas wanted to attach the reserves.
“There may be even a state government order [397/2014] that establishes the Caratinga-Sossego ecological hall,” Melo provides. “The state itself assumed the accountability of serving to analysis establishments and native landowners to implement a hall, benefiting these two populations of muriquis. It should nonetheless take just a few many years for us to see muriquis passing from one aspect to the opposite in these corridors, however we’re engaged on that.” The hall interconnecting personal reserves covers a mixed 66,400 hectares (164,100 acres) throughout seven municipalities in Minas Gerais.
These corridors connecting muriqui populations aren’t the one ones deliberate for the area. “We need to be a part of Mogol and Serra Negra,” says Beto Nardelli, director of biodiversity and tradition at Comuna do Ibitipoca. The undertaking goals to ascertain a 25-kilometer (16-mile) ecological hall between Ibitipoca and Serra Negra state parks by means of Vila do Mogol, the place one of many headquarters of Comuna do Ibitipoca is positioned. The largest problem, Nardelli says, is exactly the connection between Serra Negra and Mogol, because the Comuna space itself types a hall with Ibitipoca State Park.
Between the 2 forest massifs lies a mosaic of livestock pasture and forest fragments, which might function a foundation to ascertain the hall. “And we may also have to revive, in fact,” says Nardelli, who plans to benefit from the ranches’ authorized requirement to order some forested space (often known as the authorized reserve) to facilitate the restoration plan.
He says he believes the hall ought to promote not solely environmental but additionally financial revitalization within the area. “We want to consider the hall extra broadly, inside a socioeconomic context through which the inhabitants can get pleasure from a brand new economic system, as a result of if it’s solely good for nature and never good for folks, it will likely be harder for the initiative to succeed,” Nardelli says.
Whereas there isn’t a identified inhabitants of muriquis in Serra Negra State Park, researchers maintain out hope that there should be a bunch clinging on within the space, which covers greater than 13,000 hectares (32,100 acres) and has many areas which are tough to entry. “We have now studies of muriquis there, and there have been helicopter overflights, land incursions, use of playback, however they haven’t been in a position to show the existence of that inhabitants up to now,” Melo says. “A primatologist heard a muriqui neigh there in 2016. So there should be a small relict inhabitants, but it surely’s a needle in a haystack.”
To completely comb the Serra Negra cover, the researchers plan extra excursions to the park with particular assist. The “dronequi,” a drone nicknamed after its predominant operate of discovering muriquis, was born in 2017 from a fortuitous mixture of creativity, necessity and know-how, when Melo determined to equip a drone with a hybrid photographic and thermal digital camera.
The software is among the MIB group’s secret weapons to map hard-to-reach forest areas and establish the presence of muriquis. “The Serra Negra space is huge; we’ll must scratch it and fly the drone, but when there’s a muriqui there, we’ll discover it,” Melo says.
Comuna do Ibitipoca’s rewilding dream
Along with the undertaking with the northern muriquis, Comuna do Ibitipoca can be investing within the administration and restoration of different native wildlife species. At present, the group has three tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) licensed by the Minas Gerais State Forest Institute (IEF-MG), which would be the first ones to recolonize the area, the place the species is regionally extinct. It’s doing the identical with a bunch of 25 black-fronted piping guans (Aburria jacutinga), a chicken species that it has already launched and is now monitoring.
In one other partnership with the IEF-MG, Comuna do Ibitipoca additionally promotes the discharge of purple-breasted parrots (Amazona vinacea) to strengthen the species’ native inhabitants. Pink-and-green macaws (Ara chloropterus) and solitary tinamous (Tinamus solitarius) are additionally within the plans, with the discharge of every chicken species at totally different levels within the strategy of authorization by the environmental company.
On a extra distant horizon, Machado’s private dream is to have the ability to convey the biggest Brazilian chicken of prey, the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja), again to the skies of Ibitipoca. For this, he predicts the present space of roughly 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) of Comuna de Ibitipoca must be expanded a number of occasions over. “20,000 hectares [50,000 acres]?” we ask him. “Ideally, we must always have just a little extra, proper? About 30,000 (74,000 acres),” Machado replies in a assured tone and a smile.
The function of personal areas
Whether or not it’s within the Feliciano Miguel Abdala Non-public Pure Heritage Reserve, the place Karen Strier started her analysis and conservation undertaking for northern muriquis, or in Comuna do Ibitipoca, personal properties now play a key function in defending the biggest primate within the New World. The identical goes for the destiny of different species of wildlife native to the Atlantic Forest. The group SOS Mata Atlântica estimates that 80% of the remaining patches of Atlantic Forest lie inside personal lands.
RPPNs, the one class of conservation unit beneath personal administration, are a key choice for guaranteeing the safety of what’s left of the forest. As well as, land transformed to RPPN receive perennial title; that’s, they might be bought and should change possession, however they may stay protected areas endlessly.
There are at present 1,268 personal reserves masking greater than 230,000 hectares (568,000 acres) within the Atlantic Forest, in line with information from the Nationwide Confederation of RPPNs (CNRPPN) panel. Of those, 245 are positioned in Minas Gerais, amounting to about 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of protected Atlantic Forest on personal land.
The Minas Gerais state authorities, nonetheless, doesn’t have any particular program or coverage to advertise the creation of reserves. The one formal incentive is exemption from the agricultural territorial property tax, or ITR (which varies in line with land dimension and use), of the realm transformed right into a reserve.
“Most RPPNs within the Atlantic Forest belong to non-public people and most are very small, however in Minas Gerais there are a whole lot of corporate-owned RPPNs maintained by firms,” says Maria Cristina Weyland Vieira, president of the Affiliation of RPPNs and Different Non-public Reserves of Minas Gerais (ARPEMG). “However the overwhelming majority of RPPNs in Brazil don’t have their very own [financial] sustainability; their upkeep depends upon their house owners, whether or not they’re people or authorized entities,” she provides.
The bills for an RPPN proprietor might embody fencing the realm to stop neighbors’ cattle from getting into and trampling on a regenerating space, or funding a fireplace brigade and a ranger group. “Homeowners can’t afford that,” Weyland Vieira says. “In most small RPPNs, the house owners don’t have that cash. There are partnerships. It’s necessary to ascertain partnerships or discover sponsorships.”
She says one useful resource that municipal governments can use to encourage the creation of RPPNs and assist landowners is the switch of a part of the ecological state gross sales tax (ICMS) to house owners, for the reason that quantity obtained by municipalities is predicated on a sequence of standards, together with the existence of protected areas.
Regardless of being a personal space largely targeted on restoration and conservation of nature, Comuna do Ibitipoca will not be an RPPN. Machado is emphatic in explaining why: “It limits every little thing.” He says that as a way to assure investments in conservation, there should first be an economically viable enterprise — one thing that may be way more tough to attain beneath the crimson tape of an RPPN.
Muriqui-watching excursions, for instance, are one thing that Machado is betting on. He notes that comparable excursions centered round different birds and jaguars already generate enormous income. At Comuna do Ibitipoca, company can already go to Muriqui Home accompanied by MIB workers. On the finish of the tour, they’re invited to donate to the undertaking. “Everyone seems to be so delighted with the muriquis that they at all times donate,” Melo says.
What stays of the Atlantic Forest right this moment doesn’t rely solely on public officers for its conservation — the individuals who share possession of the 80% of the biome which are on personal lands have decision-making energy over its future. Many of those stakeholders, corresponding to these at Comuna do Ibitipoca and the Feliciano Miguel Abdala RPPN, have executed greater than their share in defending northern muriquis and the forest they inhabit. The historical past of destruction within the Atlantic Forest has trapped the biggest primate within the Americas in small fragments, leaving them with out the big and cohesive forest they want. However muriquis themselves can promote the restoration of their residence. In the long run, defending the muriquis means defending the Atlantic Forest, and vice versa.
Banner picture of a northern muriqui by Vitor Marigo.
This story was reported by ((o))eco and first revealed right here in Portuguese on Feb. 1, 2022.
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