On Earth Day, the charity ‘African Conservation Foundation’ is proud to announce the launch of its bold NFT project aimed at raising funds for the protection of Cross River gorillas. These magnificent gorillas are the rarest on the planet and one of the world’s most critically endangered species, with fewer than 300 individuals remaining in the wild. Hunting and the loss of their forest habitat due to human activities is a major threat to their survival.

The African Conservation Foundation is working to address this crisis by creating protected areas and corridors, whilst also training rangers in monitoring and conservation techniques. With the funds raised from the NFT project, the Foundation will be able to continue its critical work and help ensure the survival of the Cross River gorillas for future generations to enjoy. However, the funds will not only be used to help this special species survive, they will also be used by the charity for general conservation purposes, so donations will be helping animals across the world!

The NFT project will feature a series of 8,001 unique, one-of-a-kind digital art pieces inspired by the Cross River gorillas, African Wild Dogs, and the Okapi. Unlike other NFT projects, the majority of the proceeds will go directly to support the African Conservation Foundation’s work. There will only be 300 Cross River Gorillas for sale to reflect the scarce number left in the wild. 

MILLION DOLLAR NFT

One of the Cross River gorilla NFTs will be sold for a million dollars, offering the buyer a once-in-a-lifetime luxury safari experience, which will be documented in a feature film about the journey. However, purchasers won’t have to spend a million to go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Within the Cross River Gorilla collection of 300, there will be 5 randomly assigned NFTs which grant the holder access to a free expedition in Africa (excluding flights) to aid the charity’s work.

“We are thrilled to launch this NFT project on World Wildlife Day and raise awareness for the Cross River gorillas” said Arend de Haas, Executive Director of the African Conservation Foundation. “With the support of the art and NFT community, we hope to raise over $1.2m to preserve the habitats of the incredibly rare Cross River gorillas and secure their future for generations to come.”

NFTs are increasingly being seen as valuable collectibles in the art world, and this project showcases the potential for NFTs to make a significant impact in the world of conservation. Web3 projects have already helped raise funds for conservation initiatives around the world, and this project adds to that momentum, using the power of blockchain technology to help protect endangered species and their habitats.

With only 300 of these magnificent apes left in the world, there are literally more Bored Ape Yacht Club owners than these gorillas – let’s work together to save apes outside the metaverse.

The novel approach to charity fundraising is being delivered in conjunction with web3 start-up ‘We Are Meta’. Henry Eames, MD We Are Meta, “Speaking to the ACF and hearing the urgent need for action we couldn’t help but try this new approach to fundraising.” “We can’t wait to see who will get the Million Dollar Gorilla, but there are thousands of other NFTs starting from just a few dollars. This mission needs support from as many people as possible.”

The NFT project will be available for purchase starting on Earth Day – April 22, and interested parties can learn more and view the available pieces at https://www.300gorillas.com/ today.

ENDS

About The African Conservation Foundation 

The African Conservation Foundation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the protection and conservation of Africa’s wildlife and its habitats. The Foundation works in close collaboration with local communities, government agencies, and other organisations to implement effective and sustainable conservation programs.

For more information about the African Conservation Foundation and its work, visit https://africanconservation.org/.

Contact

Henry Eames, Managing Director of We Are Meta
+44 (0)7515 380002
Henry@wearemeta.business

Or 

Arend De Haas, Director of the African Conservation Foundation
arend@africanconservation.org

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Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: logging, poaching, overexploitation and deforestation linked with forest to farm conversion. Changes like these have triggered habitat loss, climate change, soil erosion and landslides. Animal species are disappearing at such unprecedented rate that scientists have labelled the current era ‘Earth’s sixth mass extinction’. In south west Cameroon, one of the most diverse areas in Africa, we are witnessing dramatic population declines and local extinctions of charismatic animals such as Cross River gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants.

To preserve biodiversity in south west Cameroon we need methods effective in monitoring animal population status, thus allowing the development of conservation strategies. This is particularly urgent during this period of multiple crises, such as the corona crisis and Anglophone crisis. Since 2017, there is a conflict in the south west regions of Cameroon, part of the long-standing Anglophone problem.

Instead of researchers setting out camera-traps in the rainforest, local Community Rangers are being trained and employed to carry out activities. 30 Community Rangers from several villages have been equipped with camera-traps and GPS units. The Community Rangers have been selected by the Forest Village Committees themselves.

Training sessions were organised by the African Conservation Foundation and its local partner Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF). Team members explained camtrap research and handling procedures. The basic camera trap anatomy was explained and each participant was getting familiar with battery and memory card placement. The training included a presentation on the objectives of camera trapping, choosing a suitable location for the camera trap, camera trap set-up, camera location, camera spacing in the field, camera trap height, distance of camera trap to animal trail, vegetation clearing around camera trap.

Also, research procedures, the monitoring intervals and checking camera‐traps and data exchange were explained. The training included the hands-on testing and demonstrating the new knowledge in the field.

Each image captures a moment frozen in time as the animals move through their wild habitat. We are using the camera trap data to collect information about population status and to address conservation issues, creating solutions that allow humans and wild animals to coexist in the same areas.

The programme has captured some incredible wildlife so far, including Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, red river hogs, squirrels and small antelopes. Red river hogs are a wild member of the pig family living in Africa, with most of its distribution in the Guinean and Congolian rainforests. The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is recognised as the most threatened and least distributed of all the chimpanzee subspecies, and without successful conservation actions, there is a high risk of extinction in the coming decades.

The elusive and critically endangered Cross River gorillas share the same habitat as the chimpanzees. Currently only 2050-300 individuals survive in subpopulations across the Nigerian and Cameroonian border region. They inhabit inaccessible areas such as the steep slopes of the Lebialem highlands.

By maintaining a presence in wildlife conservation through Community Rangers, it was possible to continue monitoring wildlife populations and rainforest habitat, with some challenges and delays as the situation allowed. The projects partners currently work across all the areas they worked in prior to the Anglophone crisis, which also allows us to assist displaced people.

Our Community Camera Trapping activities have been highly successful, directly engaging and training Community Rangers in wildlife monitoring in protected areas and Community Forests, while connecting conservation efforts with community development goals. The programme supports self-governance and local capacity building. With your help, we will be able to expand this programme to other communities and protected areas in west central Africa. Donate now or visit our project website for more information.

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Researchers from Oxford Brookes University examined 858 photos posted on Instagram from 2013-2019 under two hashtags — #gorillatrekking and #gorillatracking — and found most gorilla trekking tourists were close enough to the animals, without face masks on, to make transmission of viruses and diseases possible.

Examining the photos from people visiting mountain gorillas in East Africa, lead author and Oxford Brookes University Primate Conservation alumnus Gaspard Van Hamme said: “The risk of disease transmission between visitors and gorillas is very concerning. It is vital that we strengthen and enforce tour regulations to ensure gorilla trekking practices do not further threaten these already imperiled great apes”.

In January 2021, captive gorillas at San Diego Zoo tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, providing evidence that the current pandemic has the potential to also possibly also can affect great apes. Tourists’ photos examined for this research found people were close enough to the animals that disease transmission would be possible.

The importance of wearing face masks

Dr Magdalena Svensson, lecturer in biological anthropology at Oxford Brookes University added: “In the photos we analysed, we found that face masks were rarely worn by tourists visiting gorillas and that brings potential for disease transmission between people and the gorillas they visit. With people all over the world getting more used to wearing face masks we have hope that in the future wearing face masks will become common practice in gorilla trekking.”

Gorilla numbers in the balance

Mountain gorillas are endemic to the East African region. They are present in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Virunga National Park), Uganda (Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park), and Rwanda (Volcanoes National Park). In recent decades, these populations have suffered from the ill effects of human activities but in more recent years gorilla numbers have started to increase and now it is estimated that there are 1,063 individuals.

Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka from Conservation Through Public Health, Uganda, said: “This research provides a valuable perspective on how much tourists are willing to share their too close encounters with mountain gorillas through Instagram, which creates expectations for future tourists. It highlights a great need for responsible tourism to provide adequate protection while minimizing disease transmission, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Tourism: environment and wildlife

Trekking is an important financial support to mountain gorilla conservation. But large visitor numbers can impact on the wildlife and environment – guidelines to mitigate these include maintaining a minimum distance of 7 metres between visitors and gorillas. The Oxford Brookes study shows that these guidelines are not adequately followed and enforced.

Russell A. Mittermeier, Chair of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, who was not involved in the study, commented: “It has become apparent in the past few years that studies of anthroponotic and zoonotic disease spread are crucial to the field of primate conservation. With that in mind, it is very exciting to see the new research on this topic coming out of the Primate Conservation Group at Oxford Brookes University. While this study focused on one species, the mountain gorilla, the lessons learned are also applicable to many other primate species that are increasingly coming into contact with people. This line of research will certainly become more important in the future.”

The research paper Keep your distance: using Instagram posts to evaluate the risk of anthroponotic disease transmission in gorilla ecotourism is published in People and Nature.

Source: Oxford Brooke University
Pictured: Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei). Photo credit: Mark Jordahl

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The findings suggest that the origins of our own social systems stretch back to the common ancestor of humans and gorillas, rather than arising from the “social brain” of hominins after diverging from other primates, say researchers.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the study used over six years of data from two research sites in the Republic of Congo, where scientists documented the social exchanges of hundreds of western lowland gorillas.

“Studying the social lives of gorillas can be tricky,” said lead author Dr Robin Morrison, a biological anthropologist from the University of Cambridge. “Gorillas spend most of their time in dense forest, and it can take years for them to habituate to humans.”

“Where forests open up into swampy clearings, gorillas gather to feed on the aquatic vegetation. Research teams set up monitoring platforms by these clearings and record the lives of gorillas from dawn to dusk over many years.”

Some data came from a project in the early 2000s*, but most of the study’s observational data was collected from the Mbeli Bai clearing**, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society, where scientists have recorded gorilla life stories for over 20 years.

Gorillas live in small family units – a dominant male and several females with offspring – or as solitary male “bachelors”. Morrison, who has worked at Mbeli, used statistical algorithms to reveal patterns of interaction between family groups and individuals in the datasets.

By analysing the frequency and length of “associations”, she found hitherto undetermined social layers. Beyond immediate family, there was a tier of regular interaction – an average of 13 gorillas – that maps closely to “dispersed extended family” in traditional human societies e.g. aunts; grandparents; cousins.

Beyond that, a further tier of association involved an average of 39 gorillas, similar to an “aggregated group” that spends time together without necessarily being closely related. “An analogy to early human populations might be a tribe or small settlement, like a village,” said Morrison.

Where dominant males (“silverbacks”) were half-siblings they were more likely to be in the same “tribe”. But over 80% of the close associations detected were between more distantly related – or even apparently unrelated – silverbacks.

“Females spend time in multiple groups throughout their lives, making it possible for males not closely related to grow up in the same natal group, similar to step-brothers,” said Morrison. “The bonds that form may lead to these associations we see as adults.”

“If we think of these associations in a human-centric way, the time spent in each other’s company might be analogous to an old friendship,” she said.

Occasionally, when lots of young males “disperse” from their families at the same time but are not yet ready to strike out on their own, they form “all-male bachelor groups” for a while. The researchers suggest this could be another bond-forming period.

The team uncovered hints of an even higher social tier of “periodic aggregations”, similar to an annual gathering or festival based around “fruiting events”, although these are too infrequent to detect with certainty from this study’s data.

In fact, Morrison and colleagues argue that sporadic fruiting schedules of the gorillas’ preferred foods may be one reason why they – and consequently maybe we – evolved this “hierarchical social modularity”.

“Western gorillas often move many kilometres a day to feed from a diverse range of plants that rarely and unpredictably produce fruit,” said Morrison. “This food is easier to find if they collaborate when foraging.”

“Gorillas spend a lot of their early life in the family group, helping to train them for foraging. Other long-term social bonds and networks would further aid cooperation and collective memory for tracking down food that’s hard to find.”

A small number of mammal species have a similar social structure to humans. These species also rely on “idiosyncratic” food sources – whether forest elephants hunting irregular fruitings, or the mercurial fish schools sought by dolphins – and all have spatial memory centres in their brain to rival those of humans.

Before now, the species on this short list were evolutionarily distant from humans. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, live in small territorial groups with fluctuating alliances that are highly aggressive – often violent – with neighbours.

As such, one theory for human society is that it required the evolution of a particularly large and sophisticated “social brain” unique to the hominin lineage.

However, Morrison and colleagues say the addition of gorillas to this list suggests the simplest explanation may be that our social complexity evolved much earlier, and is instead merely absent from the chimpanzee lineage.

“The scaling ratio between each social tier in gorillas matches those observed not just in early human societies, but also baboons, toothed whales and elephants,” added Morrison, from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

“While primate societies vary a lot between species, we can now see an underlying structure in gorillas that was likely present before our species diverged, one that fits surprisingly well as a model for human social evolution.”

“Our findings provide yet more evidence that these endangered animals are deeply intelligent and sophisticated, and that we humans are perhaps not quite as special as we might like to think.”

Source: University of Cambridge

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Humans fall into that category, along with species like mice and lions. There are also a number of South American monkey species where males take on equal or greater childcare burdens than females. But these species are the exceptions, not the rule.

Scientists believe the reason so many male mammals don’t get involved in caring for their young is because they get higher “returns on investment” if their energy is spent seeking out more mating opportunities rather than actively parenting. Simply put, male mammals that spend their time producing more infants rather than taking care of the ones they have will leave behind more offspring. Over time, natural selection favours males who use this strategy, so fathering behaviour rarely gains an evolutionary foothold.

Mountain gorillas, found in the mountains of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are among the exceptions to the rule.

Though mountain gorilla groups are full of complex social dynamics, just as human families are, in many groups some of the strongest social bonds we observe are between adult males and infants – even when the infants aren’t the males’ own offspring. From the time that young gorillas are old enough to move away from their mothers, they follow males everywhere. Males, in turn, are extremely tolerant. Some regularly hold, play with, groom, and let infants sleep in their nests with them.

In a recent study, my colleagues and I set out to determine why this might be the case, since this behaviour didn’t seem to only benefit their own infants. We found that the gorillas who spent the most time with any young, not just their own, also sired the most infants.

This is a notable finding, since mountain gorillas are not a species in which scientific theory predicts this sort of behaviour, much less a connection to the males’ eventual reproductive success. They have the behavioural and physical characteristics of a species where males are expected to invest their energy in finding mating opportunities, not bonding with infants.

The study

For our study we used 30 years of genetic paternity data to determine which males sired which infant, and compared that to hundreds of hours of data on their behaviour. We recorded what percentage of each male’s time he spent grooming and resting with infants. In total, we included data from 23 males, who collectively sired 109 infants.

Our models show that, across the course of their lives, males who do the most grooming and resting with infants are expected to sire about five times as many infants as the males who do the least. This is true even after controlling for other very important factors, such as how long the male lived and what dominance rank he held.

This is a surprising finding. When we observe paternal care among mammals, the vast majority of the time it is in species that are monogamous – that is, males only mate with a single female, and vice versa. Gorillas are not monogamous, and the males’ very well developed characteristics for fighting (like large muscles and teeth) suggest that their primary strategy is to fight for new mating opportunities, not to care for infants.

Though we cannot be sure exactly why the males who care more for infants fare better than their peers who don’t, our best guess is that female gorillas prefer to mate with the males who are nicest to infants. There are other possibilities that need to be explored, however – for example, maybe the males who have personalities that females like are also more inclined to interact with infants.

Regardless of exactly how the connection between males’ relationships with infants and their reproductive success occurs, if males who have the strongest social bonds with infants are also leaving behind the most infants, then we would expect that over time a larger and larger proportion of male gorillas would engage in this kind of behaviour.

Presumably, something similar could have happened among the now-extinct species that led to modern humans. Our ancestors, like the gorillas, were probably not monogamous. And yet at some point males in these species must have also started interacting with, and caring for, infants.

The kind of care-taking that male gorillas do is extremely rudimentary in comparison to what humans do. Nonetheless, it is notable because of the insights it can provide into how male care-taking in the lineage that led to humans might have overcome the usual evolutionary payoffs that kept it from evolving in most living mammal species.

Stacy Rosenbaum, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Photo credits: Oddernod (Some rights reserved, CC BY-SA 2.0)

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The researchers used genetic sequencing to analyze fecal samples collected by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) from wild African great apes living the Sangha region of the Republic of Congo over the course of three years. Their goal was to understand the mix of gut microbes living in gorillas and chimpanzees and compare them to those already documented in other non-human primates and human populations. They found that gorilla and chimpanzee microbiomes fluctuate with seasonal rainfall patterns and diet, switching markedly during the summer dry period when succulent fruits abound in their environment and make up a larger proportion of their diet, as opposed to their usual, more fiber-rich diet of leaves and bark.

These seasonal shifts in the microbiomes of gorillas and chimpanzees are similar to seasonal microbiome changes observed in the human Hadza hunter-gatherers from Tanzania, who also rely heavily on the seasonal availability of foods in their environment. Seasonal shifts in the microbiomes of human industrialized cultures, such as the United States, are likely less prevalent owing to reduced reliance on seasonally available foods and globalization of the food supply, as evident in any grocery store.

“While our human genomes share a great deal of similarity with those of our closest living relatives, our second genome (the microbiome) has some important distinctions, including reduced diversity and the absence of bacteria and archaea that appear to be important for fiber fermentation,” says first author Allison L. Hicks, MS, a researcher at CII. “Understanding how these lost microbes influence health and disease will be an important area for future studies.”

“We observed dramatic changes in the gorilla and chimpanzee microbiomes depending on seasons and what they are eating,” says senior author Brent L. Williams, PhD, assistant professor of Epidemiology at CII. “Bacteria that help gorillas break down fibrous plants are replaced once a year by another group of bacteria that feed on the mucous layer in their gut during the months they are eating fruits.

“The fact that our microbiomes are so different from our nearest living evolutionary relatives says something about how much we’ve changed our diets, consuming more protein and animal fat at the expense of fiber,” says Williams. “Many humans may be living in a constant state of fiber deficiency. Such a state may be promoting the growth of bacteria that degrade our protective mucous layer, which may have implications for intestinal inflammation, even colon cancer.”

All great apes are endangered or critically endangered. Down to fewer than 500,000, their numbers have been reduced through deforestation-which destroys their habitat-and through hunting, including for meat. Even infectious disease is a major factor-as many as one-quarter of the world’s gorilla population has died because of Ebola.

“We are losing biodiversity on a global scale,” cautions co-author Sarah Olson, PhD, associate director of wildlife health at WCS. “In fact, our own human microbiome is not immune to this phenomenon. There is an ever growing need for conservation efforts to preserve environments that are vital to the health of animal populations.”

“This study underscores the importance of a One Health framework in focusing not only on diseases but also on understanding more about normal physiology,” said co-author W. Ian Lipkin, MD, John Snow Professor of Epidemiology and director of CII. “It also provides evidence to support the adage that you are what you eat.”

Source: Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health

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They conclude by arguing that conservation initiatives can be a positive part of post conflict peacebuilding. This raises an important set of questions: how do we conserve wildlife effectively in a warzone? And what are the challenges of integrating wildlife conservation with a peacebuilding strategy?

Armed conflict puts wildlife at risk. Animals can be caught in the crossfire in a very direct sense, or they might be poached to feed armies and raise revenue to fund operations. But conflict also has more indirect effects, as parks departments crumble and enforcement efforts wane, leading to more poaching.

All this has meant that conservation has become part of post-conflict reconstruction strategies in several countries across the world, including in Colombia and Cambodia.

NGOs to the rescue?

One solution lies in the creation of public-private partnerships, in which governments (to a varying degree) transfer the management of a protected area “under threat” to an NGO. The new park directors will typically be from outside the country (often white men) and are presented as “neutral” actors merely “enforcing the law” in a volatile landscape. The assumption is that such approaches will lead to well-governed spaces, which will have a positive trickle-down effect on political and economic outcomes in the wider area.

For this reason Virunga, a national park in the Democratic Republic of Congo known for its rare mountain gorillas, is now managed by a British NGO, the Virunga Foundation, in a move part initiated and funded by the European Commission. Something similar has happened with Garamba (also DRC) and Chinko (Central African Republic) national parks which are now run by the NGO African Parks.

The idea is that these separated areas can function as peace sanctuaries, or islands of good governance. Virunga in particular is often hailed as a success story of a besieged park that has recovered since the Congolese state transferred management responsibilities to an NGO.

Conservation is political

Yet such transnational efforts to “save nature” have their problems. Though usually motivated by good intentions, they can become entangled within the complex dynamics of violent conflict. Conservation initiatives, including national parks and the wildlife within them, are not merely innocent victims of war, they are an inherent part of the warscape they are situated in.

As many national parks were created during colonisation, some rebel groups regard occupation of these spaces as a form of resistance, or a way to exercise and demonstrate sovereignty over territory and/or populations. Moreover, park guards and their managers are not politically-neutral agents. In the Central African Republic one park ranger who received paramilitary training funded by the European Union even became military leader of the country’s Séléka rebel movement and was joined by many other foreign-trained park guards.

In Virunga, the “new” management works together with the Congolese army, despite the fact the army has been accused of mass hippo poaching in the past and has facilitated the illegal production of charcoal in the park together with rebel groups. In order to protect the wildlife, local people were removed from the park in military-style operations. Not wanting to give up their livelihoods of fishing, agriculture or charcoal production, these people sought the protection of rebel groups to return into the park and as a result deadly battles between rebels and park guards became even more intense.

We also cannot assume that rebel groups are always hostile towards or “bad” for wildlife. While hippos have fared poorly at the hands of the national army, mountain gorillas have been relatively safe, even from rebel groups. In fact rebel groups in the DRC have offered their own gorilla tours for international visitors.

So, while the Nature study indicates that war is usually bad for wildlife, and that conservation should be part of post-conflict peacebuilding, this does not go far enough. We need to understand that wildlife protection is not a politically-neutral activity but rather something that should be seen in the context of the conflict. If this is not recognised then there is a risk that conservation will exacerbate armed conflicts and cause more harm to animals.

Esther Marijnen, Postdoctoral research fellow, University of Sheffield and Rosaleen Duffy, Professor of International Politics, University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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The proposal for the park’s creation was jointly made by the Office Guinéen des Parcs et Reserves (OGuiPar) and the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF), and followed an extensive inventory in 2012 of all protected areas of the country including the province of the Foutah-Djallon. This confirmed that Guinea has in the region of 17,000 chimpanzees, by far the largest population in West Africa. However, many of these populations are small and isolated. The area of the Moyen-Bafing, overlapping with the prefectures of Tougué, Koubia, Dinguiraye, Dabola and Mamou, encompasses seven classified forests with what now constitutes the largest continuous population of this critically endangered sub-species in West Africa, and one of the largest on the African continent.

The Director-General of the OGuiPar, Colonel Mamady Keita said: “It is a great day for nature conservation in Guinea. The creation of a national park will contribute to the protection of this important sub-species, while allowing our Government to come closer to our objectives, as outlined during the 10th Conference of the Parties of the Biodiversity Convention held in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010. ”

The proposal to create the park resulted from a long process during which detailed data on the distribution and abundance of animal sub-species living in the area, as well as data on the demography and the socio-economy of the local communities, were gathered. An initial stakeholder engagement process was conducted to inform the communities about the benefits and potential implications of this project on their livelihood. In addition, national workshops were held to inform the national and local partners about the project, who then validated the provisional park limits.

Professor Christophe Boesch, President of the WCF said: “When I first arrived in the Moyen-Bafing in 2014, I was impressed by the high number of chimpanzee nests we found along the gallery forests. Then, coming out of a ravine, we heard numerous chimpanzee alarm calls and saw 24 individuals slowly moving away from a pool, while looking back at us. Once at the pool, we noticed they had been fishing for algae deep in the water with twigs they had left behind – a skilled solution to feed, while at the same time covering their need for water during the dry season. This tool use is unique to the chimpanzees in the Moyen-Bafing.”

The WCF engaged with two mining companies, Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) and Guinea Alumina Corporation (GAC), a subsidiary of Emirates Global Aluminium, about using the Moyen-Bafing area as an offset to compensate for the residual impacts of their mining operations on chimpanzees. CBG has received financing from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, and IFC is considering an investment in Guinea Alumina Corporations’ Sangaredi bauxite mine. Both companies are committed to implementing conservation activities that will result in a net gain in the chimpanzee population proportional to the numbers impacted in the mining concession. By working with CBG, GAC and IFC, the Moyen-Bafing national park will now receive the financial resources it requires for its activities to protect and rehabilitate the forest environment. This is an excellent example of a collaboration between the Government, the private sector and an NGO to achieve the long-termSet featured image protection of a globally important site for the West African chimpanzee.

The Minister of Environment, Eaux et Forêts, Madame Aissiatou Balde said that:  “This park represents a unique chance to contribute to the protection of the West African chimpanzee and, with specific actions, restore the vital function of water in the environment, contributing to an improvement in the living conditions of the communities directly affected by the decrease of rainfall and uncontrolled deforestation.” The next steps are that OGuiPar and WCF will conduct a series of studies including an in-depth socio-economic impact assessment and carry out a process of informed consultation and participation with communities throughout the set-up phase of the park to ensure full understanding of the trade-offs and potential livelihood changes. This will culminate in the official Decret for the national park in approximately two years with the broad support of the communities.

Christophe Boesch added that: “After the disappearance of so many chimpanzees over these past few years in West Africa, we all hope that this important move by the Government of Guinea will signal the start of specific measures to sustainably protect the environment in the region for the good of the chimpanzees and the local human populations who are everywhere being confronted by the negative consequences of climate change.”

“The creation of this national park, comes after many years of effort by the IFC and the WCF as well as CBG and GAC,” said Rene Fontaine, GAC’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Delivery Manager. “Founding the national park is just the start of a long and worthy journey towards protecting the habitat of the Western chimpanzee, so that this globally-important sub-species can increase in number and thrive in Guinea.”

For more information:

Colonel Mamady Keita, DG de l’OguiPar, Conakry, Guinea. Tel: + 224 62 25 46 290, Email: sayba58@gmail.com

Prof. Dr. Christophe Boesch, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany, and President of the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation. Tel: + 49 341 35 50 200, email: boesch@eva.mpg.de, wcf@wildchimps.org

Websites:

Ministère de l’Environnement, des Eaux et Forêts Guinée

Wild Chimpanzee Foundation

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