Sierra Leone shields forest from mining

thank to jessica GS for the link and congrats to everyone that works and has worked with the Gola forest project for their success!

from news24

Sierra Leone has conferred protected national park status on a remote tract of forest that has attracted attention for its iron ore mining potential.

The creation of the 71 000ha Gola Forest National Park near the border with Liberia is aimed at preserving the largest remaining fragment of the Upper Guinea rainforest in Sierra Leone. It is the second such park in the West African country.

The area is home to 300 species of bird, 600 butterfly species and 45 species of mammals, including some 300 chimpanzees.

Around 140 000 people live in the area, whose park status was confirmed in a ceremony on Saturday with President Ernest Bai Koroma.

Iron ore production was restarted in Sierra Leone in November and shipments in 2012 could start transforming the local economy. The International Monetary Fund expects gross domestic product to leap by around 50% in 2012 as a result of iron.

Tourists

"The mining threat still exists; but the president has been absolutely resolute that mining will not come into the park," said Tim Stowe of Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, one of the project backers.

Local people also search for diamonds and gold in the Gola Forest. Koroma said illegal miners would face consequences - a prospect which dismays some of the area's inhabitants.

"This is the place we used to go to get our money to carry on our lives," said Musa Taimeh, a 40-year-old from Tunkia chiefdom. "We cannot go to farm there, we cannot go to log; we cannot go to mine diamonds."

Sierra Leone receives very few tourists, with many foreigners still put off by associations with a bloody civil war that ended nine years ago.

Supporters of the park admit they expect few visitors initially, but hope soon to cover running costs by using the value of the forest's ability to cleanse the atmosphere of carbon dioxide as an off offset for emissions of greenhouse gases elsewhere.

The opening of the park coincides with a major scandal over allegations of corruption in the use of local natural resources.

A documentary film alleged two men in the office of Sierra Leone's Vice President Samuel Sam Sumana accepted bribes from undercover reporters in return for a promise that the vice president would back an illegal logging project.

The government has said it is investigating the allegations, which have been denied by Sam Sumana's office.

Cell phone recycling for Goualougo Apes!

News from the Minnesota Zoo and the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project:

"Dr .Tara Harris (Conservation Biologist, Minnesota Zoo) is spearheading a cell phone recycling campaign to benefit the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project. Goualougo will receive a small donation for every cell phone received through this program!!!

A group of video production students from the University of Minnesota filmed a public service announcement which features Tara promoting the cell phone recycling program: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huZUyzq51hg

People anywhere in the USA can send in phones for free through the mail by printing out the mailing label at www.mnzoo.org/cell and all of the proceeds benefit the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project!!!

We would really appreciate if you could help us to promote this program! Many thanks to Tara for the great initiative!

All the Best,
Dave, Crickette, Jean Robert, and the GTAP team!"

More info can be found at the Minnesota Zoo website

Gorilla numbers still declining

Try to ignore the sensationalist title of the article (below) and consider that all consumer nations are to blame for the decline in ape numbers. Also, Western Lowland gorillas still have strongholds (at the moment) in central africa (R-Congo, C.A.R. and Gabon), consider supporting/donating to some of the areas where we know gorillas are numerous and have huge potential for being protected (e.g. The Goualougo Triangle) -MA

Is Chinese Economic Demand Killing Africa's Gorillas?
by Nick Wadhams
from Time magazine online

Perhaps the worst misfortune to befall the world's gorillas is that they live in some of the most resource-rich and lawless parts of the planet. Their forest homes in Africa are rich in timber, gold, diamonds and coltan, the mineral used in electronics like cell phones, and the scramble to get at those minerals has been joined by ragtag militias, national armies, multinationals and governments alike.

That means it is an unusually bad time to be a gorilla. A new U.N. report warns that most of the remaining gorillas in Africa could go extinct within 10 to 15 years in the Greater Congo Basin, the swath of forest and savanna that stretches from Africa's Atlantic coast across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Rwanda and Uganda in the east.

The races for timber, gold and coltan are largely to blame for habitat loss, said the report. Militias sell their goods to middlemen and corporations that ignore the destruction caused by the resource trade, and they must be held accountable for the loss of biodiversity in the region. "Companies involved, also multinationals, have shown little or no concern regarding the origins of the resources obtained," says the report, co-authored by the U.N. Environment Program and Interpol. Militia groups that control mining in parts of Congo keep afloat with "an influx of arms in exchange for minerals and timber through neighboring countries, including the continued involvement of corrupt officials and subsidiaries of many multinational companies."

Along with habitat loss, the apes face threats from human population growth and a surge in the bush-meat trade — locals and organized traders killing wildlife to eat and sell — along with the spread of the Ebola virus, estimated to have killed about a third of the world's gorillas in the past 15 years. (Read why Ebola is killing gorillas.)

A similar report in 2002 estimated that only 10% of the gorillas' habitat would remain by 2032. But the authors say even that dire prediction was optimistic. At the time, researchers did not predict the rise in Chinese demand for timber or the extent of mining in Congo. "Ten years ago, when we did the other report, China and the rest of Asia were not major players in Africa, and now China has up to 40% of the wood-and-mineral trade," Christian Nellemann, a U.N. Environment Program official and the report's lead author, tells TIME. "We have new satellite imagery, new scientific evidence. We have new alarming reports on Ebola and transnational crime taking place in eastern DRC."

Local people have shed taboos about eating gorilla meat, so the bush-meat trade is on the rise. Mining and logging camps hire professional poachers to feed their workers and the refugees who have fled nearby conflict. Though gorillas still make up a tiny percentage of the trade, losses can be devastating, because the gorilla numbers are so low and their communities are so tightly knit.

There are two species of gorilla in the Greater Congo Basin: the western and eastern gorilla. Each species has two subspecies. Nellemann says the most threatened of those is the eastern lowland gorilla, which lives mostly in eastern Congo's North and South Kivu regions. Those areas have seen some of the worst of the fighting between the Congolese army and various rebel groups in recent years, as well as mining for metals such as gold and coltan. In 2009, scientists found a previously unknown group of 750 eastern lowland gorillas, but their numbers are still down from about 17,000 in the mid 1990s to 5,000 today.

The report does point to one hopeful recovery: that of the iconic mountain gorilla in eastern Congo's Virunga National Park. Mountain-gorilla numbers rose from about 250 in the 1950s to some 380, thanks mostly to stepped-up ranger patrols that target poachers and loggers who cut down wood for charcoal. "It has been a success story, but it doesn't make them any less vulnerable," says Emmanuel de Merode, director of Virunga National Park. "We're dealing with an unusual situation, where we have very low numbers in a single location. It's like having all your eggs in one basket, and that makes them very vulnerable beyond the success we've been having these last few years."

The case of the mountain gorilla is unique, in part because Virunga is a highly visible flagship park that has no trouble getting money or attention. At the same time, conservationists say it may provide a lesson: De Merode and his team essentially decided to do everything themselves, relying on the park rangers rather than the government to go after the rebels threatening the apes. Given that government troops sometimes trade with rebels or take part in the mineral and charcoal trades, they could actually be part of the problem.

The report focuses on the iconic gorillas of eastern Congo. But researchers say the western gorillas, though greater in number, are dying at a much faster rate. That's because they don't attract nearly the attention that Virunga's mountain gorillas do and live in areas where poachers escape punishment easily. "The most critical challenge that we face in central Africa is undoubtedly a lack of law enforcement," says David Greer, coordinator of the African Great Apes Program at the World Wildlife Fund. "In no uncertain terms, it's the ubiquitous impunity in this region. Nobody is held accountable, and there's no deterrent for killing protected species."

Update from Northern DRC

Check out Cleve Hicks' report on his work with the chimpanzees from Bili, Aketi and surrounding areas in Northern DRC on the Wasmoeth Wildlife website. There are three e-books (around 50 pages each) of amazing images and heart wrenching details about the bushmeat crisis and mining activities in Northern DRC. Cleve has included information about the chimp surveys he has been conducting and the orphan chimpanzees that he has been confiscating (when he can), as well as many other aspects of his work in the area.
Despite the seemingly large number of chimps in Norther DRC, Wasmoeth Wildlife is the only NGO working there, so I encourage you to support them and Cleve by visiting their site.

Part 2 can be found here
Part 3 can be found here