Summer 2017 Grant Portfolio Engages Local Communities to Strengthen Great Ape Conservation Efforts

Arcus’ summer 2017 grant portfolio seeks to help grantees manage conservation areas for the protection of great apes, often in the absence of adequate governmental ability or political will in the regions in which they work.

African Parks Foundation of America seeks to build projects that are conceived on a large scale in contexts where the government’s ability to manage protected areas is either limited or absent. By partnering with those governments, the organization assumes full responsibility for a protected area and enables the placing of critical expertise, staffing, and management at important sites of biodiversity, strengthening the impact of the project. The funding provided by Arcus will be used to survey the distribution of the chimpanzee population in the closed canopy forests in the eastern part of the Central African Republic (CAR). The survey results will guide the development of future conservation strategies as well as law enforcement initiatives.

Lukuru Wildlife Research Foundation will work to ensure that conservation in Lomami National Park benefits and involves local communities. The foundation also will use funding to ensure the conservation of bonobos, as well as elephants and other wildlife in the park. Additionally, the project seeks to identify how bonobo conservation can succeed in a wider environment with humans, by engaging with local groups to ensure that critical livelihood activities are not compromised.

The Wildlife Conservation Society will work to provide support to populations of Pileated Gibbon in the Northern Plains landscape of Cambodia.

The World Wildlife Fund will use funding to support Integrated Bornean Orangutan and Gibbon Conservation in the Arabela-Schwanner Landscape in Indonesia, and assess effectiveness of sustainable forest management practices in the protection of apes and gibbons.

Also funded in this cycle were Foundation Center, Global Wildlife Conservation, PanEco Foundation, and Projet Gorille Fernan-Vaz.