Engagement with governments, civil society, and private sector key for fall grantees protecting ape habitats

Most of the grantees in the fall cycle of funding are focusing their work on economic strategies that support conservation efforts, as well as on initiatives that will help place a strong emphasis on policy and government decision-making with regard to African and Asian ape habitats.

Project Primate will use its grant to support the organizational and management infrastructure of the Chimpanzee Conservation Center in Guinea, West Africa. The Center maintains strong partnerships with Guinean authorities, Interpol, and other organizations to help carry out the enforcement of anti-poaching legislation and the prosecution of hunters and traders. Meanwhile, the African Parks Foundation of America is working to strengthen the monitoring and protection of Odzala-Kokoua National Park’s great ape population. The park, which is located in northwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo, is under threat from both commercial and subsistence poaching and hunting.

The Lincoln Park Zoological Society will use its funding to support the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project, which protects great apes in a mixed-use landscape in northern Republic of the Congo. The Project operates in Nouabale Ndoki, part of the Trinational de la Sangha region known for its sizable chimp and gorilla populations. The Project will also seek to further engage the government over reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, as well as focusing on ape-health monitoring, which will be extended north into the Central African Republic, and farther south into the Congo.

Greenpeace Fund will direct support to its Safeguarding the Congo Basin Forest and Ape Habitats project, which strengthens the ability of local civil society organizations to protect natural habitats, as well as develop robust sources of information on conservation. While Greenpeace harnesses the potential of civil society, Washington, D.C.-based Waxman Strategies is engaging with the private sector to mitigate the impacts of industrial agriculture on ape habitats. The organization is currently working to support the protection of ape habitats where commodity agriculture is expanding by campaigning and monitoring to strengthen land-use sustainability criteria.

The Borneo Nature Foundation will use its funding to support the creation of “Storytelling and Games for Endangered Species Conservation,” an online gaming experience to support ape conservation worldwide. Using new technology, the organization’s conservation outreach will be broadened to include regions that contain critically important populations of four ape species to increase awareness and potential funding.

Also receiving grants this funding cycle are Orangutan Conservancy; Pan African Sanctuaries Alliance; Wildlife Impact; Projet Gorille Fernan-Vaz; Mongabay.org; Global Wildlife Conservation; and Regents of the University of California.