The Jane Goodall Institute UK

Location: The Republic of Congo

Donation amount: £16,842

Founded by renowned ethnologist Jane Goodall, best known for her work with chimpanzees, the Jane Goodall Institute is widely recognised for its innovative community-centred conservation and development programmes across Africa.  

In 2018, the Institute completed an ambitious project to transfer nearly 100 chimpanzees from Tchimpounga to three new sites on islands in the Congo’s Koilou River.  

The River’s thick forest cover and safety from human interference provides an environment well-suited to the chimpanzees. But maintaining the sites comes at a cost – namely a heavy reliance on boats and outboard engines to supply the new sites. Conditions in the tropical forests of the Congo are unforgiving and the Institute regularly needs to replace and repair equipment.  

Our donation paid for boat engines used to transport food and other supplies to the islands, and to support Ranger operations in the Tchimpounga Nature Reserve. We also enabled the Rangers to buy a drone for aerial photography.

The drone will obtain images to assess forest cover and conditions as well as agricultural yields for chimpanzee food in places that are difficult to access on foot, such as the swampy areas in the north. 

The Institute’s busy team of caregivers and veterinarians look after nearly 140 chimpanzees, and clinics are being developed on the Islands with a range of medical equipment. The donation enabled the Institute to purchase an ultrasound machine, essential for assessing the condition of the chimpanzees.  

The ultrasound machine also plays an important role in an ongoing veterinary research project into the cardiac health of sanctuary chimpanzees, in partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University in the UK. 

The Last Great Ape

Location: Cameroon

Donation amount: £7,800

The Last Great Ape organisation is a wildlife crime law enforcement network that aims to protect elephants, apes, pangolins and other threatened wildlife species from trafficking.

The organisation has significantly increased the level of wildlife law enforcement in order to deter would-be poachers and traffickers.

The results have been dramatic - shifting the country from a decade without a single wildlife prosecution to one major trafficker being prosecuted per week. This has been consistently maintained for 15 years.

In recognition of the huge impact that wildlife criminals make right across the animal kingdom, £7,800 was provided by Remembering Great Apes to allow the organisation to recruit a legal advisor.

Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program

Location: West Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia

Donation amount: £11,800

The Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program has developed a community-based approach to the conservation of orangutans, which includes a scientific research program. 

The Gunung Palung National Park is designated as a United Nations Great Ape Survival Project conservation priority area. An estimated 5,000 Central Bornean Orangutans habitate the park, which represent 10% of the remaining wild population of this critically endangered species. 

Recognising that most threats to orangutan survival are caused by humans, the program strives to instil in the local community the values of orangutan protection and rainforest biodiversity. It also implements conservation action to protect the remaining forest areas.

The forests and communities in the area are regularly exploited by outside economic interests. Natural resources such as timber, palm oil and minerals have been depleted, destroying biodiversity and leaving local people with limited long-term economic options. The program aims to reverse these trends by working with the communities around the park.

The donation from Remembering Great Apes aided the program’s scientific research which gains insights into the orangutan population using drones and ground-based nest counts. Our donation covered the ground team survey costs plus the drone survey team as they surveyed the entire park. 

Bulindi Chimpanzee and Community Project

Location: Uganda

Donation amount: £16,000

The Bulindi Chimpanzee and Community Project is a grass roots not-for-profit organisation established to protect some 300 chimpanzees living outside protected areas in the Hoima district of Uganda.  

The project blends the important work of habitat conservation for the chimpanzees with valuable initiatives to build the local communities’ sustainable livelihoods, contribute towards children’s education, and increase the level of understanding of chimpanzees in the community. 

Our donation has enabled the project to increase the number of energy saving stoves used in the community, so it is less dependent on wood from the forest. It has also helped fund a school sponsorship scheme and eased reforestation.

Gorilla Doctors

Location: Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda

Donation amount: £8,000

Gorilla Doctors is the only organisation in the world that provides hands-on medical care to gorillas in the wild.

Their mission is to conserve mountain and Grauer's gorillas through life-saving veterinary medicine and research. The Grauer’s gorilla is a subspecies of eastern gorilla that is endemic to the mountainous forests of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

This organisation travels with equipment to treat sick or injured gorillas in the forest, performing an average of 30 to 45 such interventions a year. They also rescue mountain and Grauer’s gorillas orphaned by poachers.

The donation from Remembering Wildlife has provided essential funds to help cover the costs of medicine, supplies and equipment. 

Kahuzi-Biega National Park

Location:  DRC and Cameroon

Donation amount: £8,000 and this will be sent in November 2019

The Kahuzi-Biega National Park supports one of the most significant populations of Grauer’s gorilla, which have declined from an estimated 17,000 to 3,000 over the last twenty years.

A combination of civil war, artisanal mining, general lawlessness and poverty have all contributed towards bushmeat hunting and the destruction of the gorillas’ natural habitat.

Born Free supports the monitoring and protection of ten to 12 gorilla groups in the Tshivanga Highlands sector of the park, which until recently was the only secure place for gorillas. Since 2015, efforts have been underway to survey and secure the lowlands sectors of the park as well. 

Ian Redmond Conservation Award by GRASP

Location: Rwanda

Donation amount: £10,000

The Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) launched the Ian Redmond Conservation Award to inspire a new wave of Africans and Asians dedicated to the long-term survival of great apes and their habitats.

Ian Redmond OBE has dedicated the last three decades to the protection of chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos. An envoy for many years, he helped set up GRASP in 2001.

GRASP is a unique alliance of national governments, research institutions, United Nations agencies, conservation organisations and private sector actors.  

Every winner of the Ian Redmond Conservation Award receives $5,000, and two of these winners will be sponsored by Remembering Wildlife. The first award went to The Forest of Hope project in Rwanda, which impressed GRASP with its conservation education to mitigate crop raising and improve local livelihoods in the Gishwati Forest Reserve. 

The Turengerubuzima Sewing Centre Project

Location: Rwanda

Donation amount: £3,500

One of the issues facing the future of mountain gorillas in Rwanda is the pressure on land use from the local population. Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with agriculture and dwellings stretching to the very edges of the national park boundaries as a result.

President Paul Kagame’ strategy to alleviate this pressure is to try and educate women about birth control and provide them with alternative paths in life by giving them the means to provide for themselves.

The Turengerubuzima Sewing Centre Project aims to provide employment and income for single mothers living in the villages surrounding Volcanoes National Park.

A sewing centre has relatively low set up costs and is a means to give women training, employment and income. The project is providing the initial equipment, space, security and training needed to get these women on the road to self-sufficiency.

The centre will concentrate on sewing much-needed school uniforms. Guests staying at Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge will also be able to visit the centre, as part of an established ‘community walk’ and it is hoped that this will result in donations and purchases of gifts from the centre. 

Lukuru Foundation

Location: Democratic Republic of Congo

Donation amount: £11,000

The Lukuru Foundation works in the documentation, scientific study and preservation of targeted great ape populations and other species that are of conservation concern and/or scientific importance.

Working in a landscape that is unpredictable and sometimes unstable requires great flexibility and the ability for teams to take immediate action to keep everyone safe.

This can result in urgent and unexpected demands on Lukuru Foundation's field teams on the frontline, and communication between all teams is a priority. That is why upgraded devices which allow GPS tracking and satellite messaging can save lives.

The £11,000 donation from Remembering Great Apes went towards ensuring that Lukuru’s teams have the most reliable communication equipment for real-time contact in extremely isolated areas.

Orangutan Foundation

Location: Indonesian Borneo

Donation amount: £26,000

The Orangutan Foundation works to save orangutans by protecting their tropical forest habitat, by collaborating with local communities and promoting research and education.

The habitat is unique in its rich biodiversity and is crucial for the welfare of the local population, who are as dependent on the forest as the orangutans.

The funds provided by Remembering Great Apes went towards the support of one guard post at Camp JL, an orangutan post-monitoring release camp in the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve.

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