By Jayne Horswill | Project Leader
Thank you for donating to our Protecting Chimpanzees project. David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) works to support chimpanzee populations in the remote forests of Guinea, home to around 500 wild Chimpanzees.
We are delighted to report that in the last six months, education efforts supported and funded by DSWF have reached over 900 children, around 200 women and over 10 community, school and educational groups. These educational activities are focused on the importance of protecting these amazing species and the dangers of engaging in illegal wildlife crime activities.
Due to the school calendar in Guinea, much the same as in the UK and US, schools have been closed for their annual summer holiday. This doesn’t mean that the dedicated and hardworking education team on the ground down tools however - very much the opposite! Recent activities include the creation and development of the new conservation education programme which will be rolled out in the coming months and into next year to local communities and schools living and operating in close proximity to the national parks and protected area of the Haut Niger National Park. We look forward to sharing more details of the exact programme in the coming months and in our next report.
Ibrahima Balde, an Educator from the Chimpanzee Conservation Center (CCC) directly supported by DSWF, took the opportunity during the school summer break to implement three tree-planting projects in three villages who have worked closely with the project during the first semester as a way of staying engaged and fostering positive relationships and collaboration. Ibrahima and his team also initiated and led a plastic recycling project with two separate groups of women in the town of Faranah, following a town cleaning day carried out at the end of June.
DSWF firmly believes that education and community engagement is a key conservation tool in our attempt to halt the extinction of some of the world’s most threatened and endangered species. By engaging with key stakeholders and those living alongside wildlife, we have a hope of success.
With your help, funding from DSWF also directly supports CCC’s emergency rescue missions. When news and intelligence comes in of chimpanzees who have been illegally taken and traded and are in need of rescue and interception, CCC steps in before it’s too late. We hope you have enjoyed learning a little more about this remarkable project and the work being done in one of the most remote wild chimpanzee locations in West Africa.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
