Gorilla Protection

Category: DRC, Gorilla tourism, Kabirizi Family, Rangers, Successes | Date: Oct 09 2009 | By: paula

Having met the Kabirizi family twice I feel as if they are my family so you can imagine my joy when I saw that Kabirizi has another child. that means that Miza, the orphaned baby gorilla we wrote about in “Looking for Miza” about has another sibling!

Look at this beauty!

Thank you Innocent for bringing us this wonderful news. I know that things are still very difficult in eastern DR Congo but the gorillas look quite peaceful thanks to our former CEO Emmanuel de Merode who is now the Virunga National Park warden and his team of dedicated rangers on the ground.

Tags: Congo DRC, gorilla, Innocent, mountain gorilla, Virunga, Virunga National Park

One response so far

Category: Community, DRC, Successes, Year of the Gorilla | Date: Oct 01 2009 | By: tuver wundi

In just ten seconds online you could help the Gorilla Organization to continue funding a vital project that reduces pressure on precious gorilla forests in DR Congo to preserve the long-term future of gorillas.

Out of nearly a thousand nominations, the UN Year of the Gorilla ‘Jiko Stoves’ project in the area surrounding the Virunga National Park has been selected as one of only twelve finalists in the World Challenge 09 competition.

Online voters simply have to visit www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/2009-finalists-project04.php and cast a vote for the DR Congo ‘Jiko Stoves’ project. It takes only ten seconds and does not require registration.

The area surrounding the Virunga National Park in DR Congo, home to the critically endangered mountain gorilla, is densely populated, with most families reliant on firewood and charcoal for cooking and heating. The collection of firewood can have a detrimental effect on the gorilla habitat, and is also very time-consuming and physically exhausting for the villagers and children involved.

Partnering with local group AIDE-Kivu, the Gorilla Organization launched the fuel-efficient stove project in 2008, producing and distributing ‘jiko’ stoves which reduce the consumption of firewood and charcoal by at least 75%. Families with fuel-efficient stoves are now using on average just 1.5 sacks of charcoal a month compared to four sacks per month before.

The Director of The Gorilla Organization, Jillian Miller, says “The ‘Jiki Stoves’ project in DR Congo has shown proven success in reducing the consumption of firewood and charcoal – which is a huge threat to the critically endangered mountain gorilla. Winning the $20 000 prize money in the World Challenge competition would fund this vital project for an entire year”

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Category: Outreach & Awareness, Press, Successes, Year of the Gorilla | Date: Sep 28 2009 | By: Daniel

26th September
Knuckle-walking over London’s Tower Bridge in a gorilla suit is quite a novelty, I found today. How to describe it?  Imagine almost as many people in gorilla suits as there are mountain gorillas on the planet (more than twice as many as there are Cross River Gorillas) - no, wait a minute, no need to imagine it - just look up the photos and videos of London’s annual Great Gorilla Run.

Described as the most entertaining charity event on the planet, there was a carnival atmosphere in the City when I arrived towing my gorilla suit in a wheeled bag (yes, I know I should have been collecting donations on the Tube dressed in it en route, but my biggest concern over doing this event was thermo-regulation - whenever I’ve used ape-suits I emerge bright red and drenched with sweat after only a short time, and so I aimed to spend the minimum time possible in faux-fur!  Also, I have a policy of acting only in a species appropriate fashion when dressed as an ape, which is why I felt the need to knuckle-walk rather than run the 7km). 

I slipped through the dancing fancy-dress gorillas and quickly attached a Year of the Gorilla banner onto the railings over-looking the crowd, then looked for somewhere to change. No handy telephone box beckoned a la Superman, so behind a marble pillar had to do - it was only minutes to go to the advertised start time.  The inspiration for my outfit was the famous Victorian cartoon of Darwin’s head on an ape’s body, so in addition to the gorilla suit (provided when you sign up to the GGR), I’d acquired a pirate’s beard and a rubber ‘bald head’ like an old-style swimming cap. 

I’d only tried out the costume the night before, and was disappointed to find that not only did it have an anatomically bizarre rubber chest-piece with breasts and no fur down to the groin, it had no feet.  Everyone else was wearing running shoes, but that didn’t seem right so I opted for bare feet and had brought a bottle of black food-colouring from the cake decoration box in our kitchen to colour my toes. While some of the GO volunteers patted flour on my back (the suit is all black fur, but I fancied being a silverback), I made a mess all over the plaza blacking my feet (it is water soluble, so will soon wash away, honest!) and then I was off, knuckle-walking through the bipedal throng, barely able to see a thing through the tiny eye-slits in the mask.

Jillian Miller, CEO of the Gorilla Organisation, was making a speech with TV presenter Helen Skelton, so I knuckled onto the podium and gave a hug and a chest beat, then the rubber hit the tarmac and we were off.

Quadrupedalism is difficult for humans because of our inter-membral index (the ratio of arm-length to leg length) - other apes have longer arms than legs, but our long legs, so good for striding and running, just make our bum stick up in the air when on all fours. Conscious of this, I was trying to keep my legs crouched, taking my weight on the knuckles and swinging myself to one side or the other in a slightly side-ways gait. This worked OK for a few paces at a time, alternating with straightforward quadrupedal walking, but the limited vision was a problem.  Mostly I was seeing bits of pavement, or looking up sideways to check for traffic.

Then out of the corner of the gorilla-mask’s eye, I noticed some impossibly long legs with no fur at all… two shapely models in hot-pants and high-heels were being photographed (for the Sunday Sport, I later found out – a paper with an unending fascination for the female form).  Just as I took one by the hand and dragged her tri-pedally, my rubber bald-hat popped off and the photographer snapped away as these lovely leggy ladies struggled to stretch the rubber over a bearded gorillas head… I wonder if it made it into the paper?

Behaving like a gorilla can be a lot of fun on a sunny Saturday in London.  It wasn’t too long before the other six hundred and twenty or so gorillas had overtaken me, and so for most of the course I had the street to myself.  Hence, many tourists, passersby and one policewoman had their day enlivened by a Darwin-bearded gorilla.  You have to be careful with kids – some can be reduced to tears if you approach (which rather defeats the object), but others you can hoist onto your back for a ride.   Swinging from trees and railings, climbing into ice-cream vans, squeezing between courting couples, joining drinkers at out-door tables – the opportunities for fun are endless, and my only rules are that it must be within the gorilla’s behavioural repertoire and shouldn’t cause offense!

Being the last gorilla meant that as I made my way round the course, I rounded up the stewards as I went.  One witnessed me head-butting a pillar on the embankment and kindly walked with me to warn of obstacles and make sure I didn’t take a wrong turning.  I must confess I didn’t do the whole 7km on all fours, but I did do it all in character, so when I evolved a bipedal stance, it was with the kind of arm-swinging swagger I’ve seen gorillas do.  The most painful part was knuckle-walking back over the Thames on the Millennium Bridge (which has a serrated steel surface like a cheese-grater). It was just over two hours when I crossed the finishing line – I’d missed the prize-giving for the best dressed gorilla, etc.,  but there was still someone there to hang a medal around my neck and hand me a banana, a bottle of water and a ‘Grumpy Gorilla’ bar (a fruity cereal snack by one of the sponsors www.grumpygorilla.co.uk).

I got a friend to photograph me hanging under the YoG banner, then removed the mask and emptied the sweat that had pooled in the rubber gorilla-hand gloves…  apart from the not-so-bald pate,  that was probably the point when I most resembled the Victorian cartoon. Usually I don’t like to be photographed half in a gorilla suit, but I noticed Sam of the Gorilla Organization being interviewed and he invited me to join him.  I explained about the YoG and how the gorilla’s fate is tied to Africa’s tropical forests which are of global importance, and only then found that the film crew were also making a series for BBC World on climate change leading up to the Climate Convention in Copenhagen in December.  They had not yet heard anyone speak of the role of tropical forests, so once again serendipity helped get this important message to a wider audience.

What are my lasting impressions?  Well, aching muscles and blisters on my knuckles aside, I have to agree with Bill Oddie (who sadly was unwell and missed this year’s event) that the Great Gorilla Run is the most fun fund-raising event in the calendar.  Regular readers of the YoG Blog may recall that I mentioned my intended participation a few weeks ago, hoping that curious browsers would find their way to my sponsorship page (http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=281732&LangPref=en-CA ) where they’d be invited to pledge a ‘Darwin’ (the £10 note bears a portrait of Charles Darwin) but alarmingly, right up until last Monday only one person had done so. Once back in the office after the ‘State of the Gorilla’ Safari, I began firing off emails to all and sundry and to my immense relief, by Saturday the total pledged was £1,100 – just behind the top five fund-raisers.  If you had intended to sponsor me, it is not too late – and one of the projects to benefit will be the fuel-efficient stoves that are listed in the YoG projects list.  Over to you!!   And many thanks in anticipation…

Tags: conservation, fundraising, gorillas, great gorilla run, Ian Redmond, outreach, PR, Year of the Gorilla

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Category: Community, Diseases, Gorilla Range States, Outreach & Awareness, Successes, Threats, Western Lowland Gorilla, Year of the Gorilla, law enforcement | Date: Sep 14 2009 | By: Daniel

Thursday, 3rd September

I bought a ticket on local airline CEIBA for a flight at 1300, then took a taxi to explore the local bushmeat markets in Pointe Noir. The only animals in the first market were massive Merou fish being filleted among crowded fruit and veg stalls, so we quickly moved on. Pointe Noir main market is a warren of narrow passageways between stalls selling every conceivable product, and I struggled to keep up with my guide without knocking over the displays with my camera-bag.

Once past the smoked and salted fish section, the stalls were piled with portions of wild animals – porcupines, pangolins, cane-rats, antelopes and monkeys.  It brought to mind the game butchers where I grew up in Beverley, Yorkshire, where venison, rabbits and pheasants were usually on display. 

The difference (apart from the variety of species) was that the African bushmeat trade (link to www.4apes.com/bushmeat) has grown to unsustainable levels as commercial hunters gain access to previously inaccessible forests.   I chatted to the traders to ask what other species they sold, and whether there was still a demand for ape meat.   They were quick to explain that inspectors from the Ministry of Water and Forests came by every week to check, and that no endangered species were sold.  They had been well informed by the nearby Jane Goodall Institute sanctuary, Tshimpounga, and no longer sold chimpanzee or gorilla.  “But surely older people who have always eaten it must still be trying to get some?” I said.   “They have to change their meat!”  came the reply.   I asked if he would say that on video for the YoG website, and he said he would but felt it would be better coming from the President of the Bushmeat Traders.  When introduced, the President agreed to speak on video, and once we get these HD video files compressed and on-line, you’ll see what he has to say. Mind you, it contrasts sharply with the recent exposé by Endangered Species International, reported at http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8256000/8256464.stm

Africa’s Green Heart - a new film by Steve O Taylor, partially supported by the CMS (UNEP’s Convention on Migratory Species), which includes dramatic bushmeat sequences, will soon be available from the Ape Alliance.  It is hoped that this educational resource will stimulate discussion in schools, governments and among the various interested parties in this complex issue.

Enforcing existing wildlife law is a crucial and immediate challenge in the fight for gorillas’ survival. The YoG supports a project in Congo Brazzaville. Find out more about the project here! You can also donate for it through this site.

Got back to the airport in good time to check in, get my passport stamped and just as I was putting my pocket contents into the basket for the X-ray the word came through that Gabon was closed due to the post-electoral disturbances.  The presidential elections had been close with all three main candidates declaring victory, and the situation was tense.  The next flight to Libreville wasn’t until tomorrow evening, so not wanting to waste a day and a half, and being advised that there were more flights to other range states from Malabo (the second scheduled destination), I decided to take flight anyway.

Once we were off the plane in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea on the island of Fernado Po, a friendly young customs officer seemed to think a transit visa wouldn’t be a problem once the Comisario returned to his desk and asked me to wait.   I waited. 

I could see how busy everyone was; two women sat in the corner deep in conversation, two men stood huddled over a laptop exchanging messages with someone, somewhere (I sneaked a peek) and a young guy with a games console plugged in next to the non-functional metal-detector got to the next level, did a little dance, then grinned sheepishly at me before returning to slay whatever monsters next came his way.  

No-one seemed to have within their job description ‘assisting stranded passengers’.   Now and again I’d experiment to see where exactly ‘the point they shall not pass’ was, and I’d catch someone’s eye, or a different uniform would walk through, so I would ask if I could please have a transit visa or a receipt for my passport so I could go and find a hotel for the night.   “Attendez s’il vous plait,” came the reply. 

The Comisario was a big man and once he realised he had a room full of passengers next door he took charge.  In French and Spanish he asked, “where are you all going?“   The babble of destinations was confusing, so he told everyone going to Nigeria to sit here,  to Benin, sit there, and so on.   People obediently sorted themselves geographically as his assistant collected their passports.   That was much tidier, so he walked back to his office.   There was a moment’s silence before everyone looked at each other and burst out laughing. 

I followed him to his office - well furnished with a big desk and well-upholstered leather armchairs - and tried to explain that the tidy room full of people were just here until the aircraft sitting on the tarmac outside was ready for take-off.   My situation was different and to find the next flight to one of the countries I needed to visit a travel agent, probably tomorrow, so please could I have a transit visa and all would be well.  He eventually got the message and extracted my passport from the pile, then placed it in isolation on a separate part of his desk and asked me to wait.   

I tried the ace up my sleeve, and showed him my UNEP-CMS Ordre de Mission, which listed Equatorial Guinea and asks ‘To Whom it May Concern’ to assist with a visa for my mission.   He called the flight controller down and they conferred, then the flight controller apologised and led me past the tidy but increasingly angry passengers (now rebelling by re-sorting themselves and saying they’ll never fly woth CeiBA again), upstairs to the VIP lounge where he left me in splendid isolation.   Here I could enjoy the well-upholstered leather sofas and ornate gilded glass coffee table, upon which a hostess presented me with a cold tonic (sadly no gin), and I was left alone.   But there was power, and comfort, so I blogged until I was falling asleep, then curled up under my kikoi and got some kip.

Read Ian’s previous post here!

Tags: bushmeat, fundraising, law enforcement, poaching, Threats, Western Lowland Gorilla, Year of the Gorilla

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Category: Community, DRC, Gorilla Range States, Gorilla tourism, Mountain Gorillas, Outreach & Awareness, Press, Successes, Threats, Uganda, Year of the Gorilla | Date: Sep 02 2009 | By: Daniel

August 26th – The 5.30am bus to Kisoro was again more Matatu than Express, so it was mid-morning when we pulled into Kisoro, the nearest town to the DRC border. A throng of motorcycle taxis vied for my custom, and I squeezed past them and chose one on the edge of the pack. Mounting it with my rucksack on my back and placing my camera-bag on the petrol tank, we lurched off to the Mgahinga National Park office.

The man behind the desk seemed a bit bemused when I pulled out a video camera (but there was a YoG poster behind him, so I had to get the shot). He called for a colleague from the back office whose face split into a broad grin when he saw me. We had met eight years before, when I brought the first Discovery Initiatives (a partner of the UNEP Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) ) gorilla safari, and left a copy of Eyewitness Gorilla at the park education centre. He gave a smiling YoG interview and I said goodbye, apologising for the brevity of my visit, and crossed the road to the Kisoro Gorilla Organization Resource Centre.

The staff couldn’t have been more helpful, letting me send some urgent emails and offering much-needed tea and biscuits. They told me (and the YoG video) of their respective activities and I was pleased to pass on a copy of the BBC Natural World documentary ‘Titus the Gorilla King’ kindly provided by Tigress Films for such purposes. As a final favour, they told me to pay off my motor-cycle taxi and drove me to the Bunagana border in the elderly but much more comfortable GO vehicle.

Entering the DRC is often a lengthy procedure, and the border officials couldn’t quite understand why, given my interest in gorillas, I was not going to see the gorillas in the Virunga NP (now that tourism has resumed, that is what most white people cross here for on day trips). I explained about the YoG and my mission, and one officer invited me into his office. Here we go, I thought, I wonder how much this is going to cost me… but once he had me seated, he explained he was concerned about the smuggling of endangered species across the border around here, and was there someone who could help him stop it? Wow! “Mais oui, bien sur!” I said, and promised to pass on his name to various colleagues.

Not so Easy Rider

Outside, the driver of the only four-wheeled vehicle in sight said he’d take me to Goma for $200, but a young motorcyclist with wrap-around shades agreed to do it for $20 plus my last few Uganda shillings and Rwandan Francs. “D’accord” I said, and climbed aboard, again with my rucksack on my back but with my camera-bag wedged between us, there being not enough room on the tank. I immediately noticed an important difference between Ugandan and Congolese motorbike taxis. In Uganda, there is usually a large rack or padded seat behind the pillion passenger – very practical. The Congolese love of style, however, means that every bike I saw between Bunagana and Goma (and Goma is now Motorbike City!) had the same swish design with all lines sweeping up to a small curved handle for the pillion passenger to hold.

Never mind that everyone in Africa wants to carry more than a vehicle can cope with – looking cool is more important. I struggled to perch the base of my rucksack on the handle and hang on every time my driver accelerated, but had to shift positions every few minutes as muscles complained at the ridiculous workload they were being asked to do – whilst looking cool and waving at incredulous pedestrians, of course, as we zoomed downhill.

The road was end-stage degraded tarmac - bumpy, with loose gravel, pot-holes and - every time we passed another vehicle or (rarely) were overtaken by one - clouds of dust. To save fuel my driver, Jean-de Dieu, would switch off the engine on the downhill stretches and so sometimes we were almost silently coasting downhill – zero carbon motorcycling – which felt fantastic until jolted by the next pot-hole or lump of volcanic rock! I’d forgotten just how far it is from Bunagana to Goma, and after two hours or so, I felt as if I’d had a serious workout.

Never mind, I thought, it is good cross-training for the Great Gorilla Run I have signed up to do on 26th September. I’d learned about cross-training during my somewhat inept preparations for my one and only marathon five years ago . The GGR is only 7km, but involved hundreds of people running through London in gorilla suits! Please be among the first to sponsor me a ‘Darwin’ or two (note: a £10 note has a portrait of Charles Darwin on it, and in honour of his bicentenary I propose to run inspired by the Victorian cartoon which showed Darwin’s head on an ape body). I plan to knuckle-walk/run for as long as possible, but if that is too much of a Slog4YoG and my back protests, I’ll evolve a bi-pedal stance and Jog4YoG like the other runners – maybe you can place bets on how many km I manage quadrupedally?

The road took us across the now empty green plains of Kibumba.  In the mid-1990s there had been a refugee city of several hundred thousand people here and I could hardly believe how it had changed since my last visit during that time.   The exodus of so many families fleeing the Rwandan civil war and genocide made this spot an epicentre of human misery in 1994.   I was there a few days later with Dieter Steklis of DFGFI and a BBC film crew, looking for friends and colleagues to help them return home; none of us will ever forget the sight of thousands of blue UNHCR canvas shelters in pouring rain, each one housing a family. 

On two subsequent visits to bring clothing bundles from kind donors, I was amazed by how industrious people had used jagged volcanic rocks to build semi-permanent homes, weddings were taking place, babies being born - communities making the best of a terrible situation until their repatriation.   Now, the land has been reclaimed by ICCN for the Virunga World Heritage Site, and there is little sign of the refugee city - but there is hardly a tree standing either!   It will take decades for the forest to re-grow, but it is already green; vegetation here is quick to colonise newly cooled lava flows, so there are lots of pioneer plant species to take root in the cleared ground.

Clinging on with my left hand, I fumbled my video camera out of my jacket pocket and tried to grab a few images to compare with my 1994 photos; unfortunately the jarring was so extreme at this point the camera kept turning itself off to protect the hard-drive (where’s my trusty OM1 when I need it?).

No MOP, no flight

We finally pulled up at the entrance to Goma Airport, guarded by men in blue helmets behind sandbags. Easing my wobbly legs off the bike I paid Jean de Dieu, picked up my kit and tried to walk normally into the busy MONUC departure area. There was a flight to Kinshasa scheduled for 1500 hours and it seemed as though my timing was perfect, except I soon learned I couldn’t board without a MOP, whatever that stands for, and none of the military check-in staff with clip-boards had my name on their list. People were complaining about the flight being over-booked, and I saw army top brass being turned away, so I realised I wasn’t going to Kinshasa that day.

Eventually I was directed to an office behind rolls of razor-wire where a delightful young lady called, appropriately, Santa, found the email from UNEP-CMS, who together with UNEP/GRASP and WAZA is behind the whole Year of the Gorilla campaign, with my flight request, called up someone on high and smiled saying, “You are on the flight first thing tomorrow morning.” Who says that Santa only gives gifts at Christmas?

She printed out my MOP (effectively a MONUC ticket) and I registered it in another office at the airport. I called Tuver (from Gorilla Org.) and he kindly agreed to drive out to the airport and bring me into town (another motorbike ride – aagh!). It was frustrating to lose half a day but pleasant, while waiting for Tuver, to sit quietly on a lump of volcanic rock by the side of the road watching other people bouncing along on motorbikes.

Several people helpfully told me how filthy my face was from the dusty ride and two separate immigration officials just had to come over to check my papers – it being almost unheard of for a lone mzungu to sit on a rock beside the road. The second was more curious than officious, and it turned out he knew many of the conservationists in town, which is how I ended up having supper with Urbain Ngobobo, who works for the Frankfurt Zoological Society project, assisting ICCN in training park guards and trying to control the illegal charcoal trade.

All the way to Goma I’d been passing vehicles – from the ingenious, home-made wooden scooters pushed by boys to huge trucks piled with sacks and topped by passengers – all bringing fuel for the city’s cooking fires. Some of it may be legal, but much of it is illegal and destroying the forests of the Virunga National Park. The trade is estimated to be worth $30 million per year, and unsurprisingly, the organised crime ring behind it is resisting with lethal force attempts to enforce the law– even killing several gorillas in 2007 . To find out more about a project aiming to tackle the threats of charcoal trade and deforestation, click here.

Read Ian’s previous post here!

Tags: conservation, DRC, gorillas, Ian Redmond, MONUC, public transport, range states, Uganda, Year of the Gorilla

4 responses so far

Category: Community, DRC, Mountain Gorillas, Press, Successes, Uganda, Year of the Gorilla | Date: Aug 25 2009 | By: Daniel

Unveiling a new era for communicating its work to practitioners and the public alike, the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP) has set up an entirely new website, www.igcp.org, which will go “live” today, August 25th.

Opening during the UN Convention on Migratory Species designated Year of the Gorilla, the new site promises greatly enhanced interactivity, a fresh new look and improved navigation. Visitors will now be able to read the IGCP’s gorilla blog on the site, as well as follow and comment on the ups and downs, challenges and successes, passions and commitments of its staff and partners in their work to save the world’s approximately 700 remaining Mountain Gorillas, which live on the misty slopes of the Virunga Volcanoes Range and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest areas bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. The site will also integrate a variety of Web 2.0 features such as Twitter, Facebook etc. Visit now!

“More visits and more followers will greatly enhance our work at IGCP,” stated jamie Kemsey of IGCP, “and we are ready for it. I am excited to start using this new tool, which will help us keep current and keep progressing in the ever dynamic world of mountain gorilla conservation.”

For more information, contact Jamie Kemsey at jkemsey@awfafrica.org.

Tags: events, Mountain Gorillas, outreach, publication, Year of the Gorilla

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Category: Gorilla Range States, Press, Successes, Threats, Year of the Gorilla, law enforcement | Date: Aug 18 2009 | By: Daniel

Dear all,

An ivory dealer called Kamusu was arrested some months ago (linked with the dealer Ikama) and has been judged. The judges were very strict as Kamusu has to pay 2,000 Euros and stay 3 years in prison.

Moreover, 7 people who had stolen 195 tusks from the “Direction Départementale de l’Economie Forestière de la Sangha” were also strctly judged with several years in prison and several millions FCFA to pay.

Sincerely,
Luc Mathot
Coordinator

—————————————————

Bonjour à tous,

A trafiquant d’ivoire appelé Kamusu et arrêté il y a quelques mois dans le cadre du Projet PALF (et lié au trafiquant Ikama) a été jugé jeudi dernier. Les juges ont fait preuve de sévérité et ont condamné Kamusu à trois ans de prison fermes et une amende à payer de 2000 Euros.

Par ailleurs, les 7 responsables d’un vol de 195 défenses d’éléphants à la Direction Départementale de l’Economie Forestière de la Sangha ont été sévèrement jugés à plusieurs années d’emprisonnement ferme et à des amendes élevées.

Ces deux cas sont très encourageants et montrent clairement la prise de conscience positive des autorités.

Tags: bushmeat, Elephants, fundraising, ivory, law enforcement, poaching, Threats, Western Lowland Gorilla, Year of the Gorilla

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Category: Press, Successes, Threats, Videos, Western Lowland Gorilla, Year of the Gorilla, Your Donations, law enforcement | Date: Jul 20 2009 | By: Daniel

For the first time in Republic of Congo, a chimpanzee dealer was arrested and finally prosecuted. He was judged guilty and was sentenced to one year in prison and fined 1,100,000 CFA (1,679 Euro). This is the result of the Project PALF (Project to Apply the Fauna Law or Projet d’Appui à l’Application de la Loi Faunique), managed by The Aspinall Foundation and WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society). This project also benefits gorillas and you can donate for it!

Here you can watch PALF footage on Youtube.

Or you can watch the clips right here:

Tags: bushmeat, fundraising, law enforcement, poaching, Threats, Western Lowland Gorilla, Year of the Gorilla

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Category: Press, Successes, Threats, Western Lowland Gorilla, Year of the Gorilla | Date: Jun 26 2009 | By: Daniel

This is to give you a better idea of the PALF project. They will start blogging themselves soon.

Following on from investigations co-ordinated by PALF in Brazzaville, a wildlife trafficker trading in panther pelts was identified in the capital’s main hotel. He was arrested on May 8th with the assistance of the local Department of Economic Forestry and police. There were two operations carried out on the 12th May, which led to the arrest of an ivory dealer and a wildlife trafficker selling chimpanzees (making this the second arrest of a chimpanzee trafficker since December 2008).

In November 2008, a young orphan gorilla was also seized from a police officer that was attempting to sell it. The gorilla infant, named Loketo, was taken into care by ‘Projet Protection des Gorilles’ (www.ppg-congo.org), the world’s only successful gorilla rehabilitation and reintroduction project. He has now joined a group of 5 other orphans who will be reintroduced into a protected reserve within the next few years. With the support of the three-year old male Kingoue, Loketo continues to develop well.

The other main focus of the project is to encourage high-profile media attention regarding any trafficking-related arrests, as well as the subsequent sentences delivered to the people involved. With regards to the latter, a trafficker dealing in chimpanzees was sentenced to a year in prison in March 2009, becoming the first individual to be prosecuted for wildlife trafficking in the Republic of Congo.

Thanks to intensive media publicity, the Congolese people are becoming more aware of wildlife protection laws and the risks associated with the trafficking of protected wildlife or derived products – such as live great apes, panther skins or ivory.  

Tags: bushmeat, fundraising, law enforcement, poaching, Threats, Western Lowland Gorilla, Year of the Gorilla

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Category: Community, Humanitarian Situation, Political situation, Press, Successes, Threats, Videos, Year of the Gorilla | Date: Jun 25 2009 | By: Daniel

World renowned conservationist George Schaller, one of the first to look at gorillas from a modern, enlightened perspective, gives a recount of his experiences and an outlook on the future and obstacles of gorilla conservation. A must-see!

There is also a higher quality version on Youtube, click here.

YoG Patron Dr. Jane Goodall (DBE) kindly supplied us with this video message of support to be shown at the Frankfurt Gorilla Symposium in Frankfurt, Germany, which took place from 9-11 June. We thank her for lending her voice to this main YoG event, whose attendees collectively produced a ‘Frankfurt Gorilla Declaration’, find out more here.

And here’s another message Jane Goodall recently shot in Africa (link to Vimeo).

Tags: awareness, George Schaller, Jane Goodall, Year of the Gorilla

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