Van Roosmalen Is Free
Posted by: Loren Coleman on December 1st, 2008
Breaking news is coming out of Brazil that the man who has discovered numerous animals in the Amazon will not have to go back to prison.
During August, a Brazilian court of justice provisionally released from prison Dutch monkey researcher Marc van Roosmalen. The famous naturalist – and cryptozoologist – had previously been sentenced to almost 16 years in jail for “biopiracy and embezzlement.”
A little disconcerted, but relieved, Van Roosmalen walked out of the Brazilian prison, and the media noted that he felt “he had returned from a nightmare.”
Radio Netherlands is now reporting that “Marc van Roosmalen will not have to return to prison after Brazil’s Court of Appeal commuted a 14-year term he received for bio-piracy in 2007….Although the appeals court has not quashed the 2007 sentence fully, Dr van Roosmalen will not have to return to prison because of the length of time he spent in custody before his trial began.”
This a victory, of sorts, and it is great to hear that van Roosmalen will not return to imprisonment. Nevertheless, it does sound like someone was out to get him:
Dr van Roosmalen was originally found guilty of trafficking in rare animals and theft of government property. Brazil has tough nature conservation laws, but these are by no means always applied. Keeping monkeys and even taking orchid leaves is strictly speaking illegal. However, it would be difficult to bring a case against Dr van Roosmalen’s monkey sanctuary near Manaus. Government departments, such as that of the environment, the IBAMA, have often been instrumental in bringing monkeys to the sanctuary.
A large part of Dr van Roosmalen’s original sentence was handed down for theft of government property. This involved scaffolding used to film animals from the rainforest canopy. The equipment was the gift of a British television company to the renowned INPA research institute, which is based in Manaus and for which Dr van Roosmalen worked. The scaffolding was temporarily kept at the Manaus monkey sanctuary. The charge of theft was fully quashed by the appeals court.
His supporters point out he is not a diplomatic man and has made enemies within Brazilian society. They say his prosecution was the result of political intrigue. Once, when returning from the forest with a number of monkeys he wanted for research, he was met by police, a camera crew and politicians. In what was an election stunt, they told him that bio-piracy had to stop and that foreigners should stop exploiting the Amazon.
We wish him well, and hope his problems are behind him. Furthermore, we look forward to reading of his continuing work in conservation and cryptozoology.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I dont think he should go back to jail. His work in this domain was and is very important for the world and it would be weird to reward all his work by putting him in jail. I’m glad his free now , he deserves it.
Brazilian prison sounds pretty scary to me. Glad he’s out.
i dont get it….
why would he even go to court in first place? He didnt steal any government property, the equipment was a gift from a British TV company and that wasnt biopiracy, it was doing research and they werent “exploiting” the amazon, he was doing work to show reasons to protect it!
God, i hate governments. It always seems that they’re always out torturing so and so, stereotyping or discriminating against one race or another, spending thousands of dollars on parties while their country burns and everything they once stood for is destroyed. That and wasting time persecuting an innocent researcher.
Wired published a very good article about van Roosmalen.
The way I see it, van Roosmalen is an incredible scientist with a true concern for conservation. However, his strong character and total disregard for bureaucratic policies made him an easy scape goat for ambitious politicians. We live in a world where if you have monkeys in your private sanctuary that you’re trying to protect, you need to deal with the tedious paper work for them; you cannot act as if you’re above the law, even if you’re doing it with the very best of intentions.