Recipes for Survival_English_tcm46-28192

WSPA/APE ALLIANCERECIPES FOR SURVIVAL4. NGOs and academic institutions• Act as intermediaries between government and international agencies, localcommunities and logging companies.• Promote and conduct research and disseminate results.• Promote and conduct education and awareness campaigns at all levels, from localcommunities to policy-makers.• Support programmes to encourage alternative livelihoods.• Encourage and train professional field staff skilled in addressing both biologicalresource use and local development.5. International donors• Ensure the issue of hunting is addressed in all development and conservationprogrammes.• Ensure development programmes are based on what is biologically feasible andappropriate in the local political, social and cultural context.• Promote conservation and extension programmes that reduce hunting and promotealternative sources of food and income.• Promote the establishment of protected areas and extractive reserves.8.2. Primate-specific solutionsPotential solutions relating to the primate bushmeat trade include targeting efforts to:• Monitor logging companies through independent authorities to ensure theircommitment to reducing their involvement in the bushmeat trade (for example, byproviding alternative food for their staff, prohibiting the transport of bushmeat ontheir trucks and prohibiting hunters from setting up camp in their concessions).• Educate consumers about using their buying power to support exclusive use oftimber products certified for wildlife and forest-friendly management practices.• Use ‘Ape-friendly’ stickers on wood.• Educate local people through public service radio broadcasts. WSPA (1994) foundthat village elders in hunting camps throughout Central Africa possessed small radios.These were the focal point of villages and represented an education opportunitythrough public service broadcasts, which could be followed up by distribution ofprinted materials to towns, villages, schools, animal welfare organisations andgovernment agencies.• Combat the commercial bushmeat trade by educating and seeking collaboration fromcaptains of riverboats, a major portal for bushmeat transport from remote regions tocities. Boats could be used to distribute educational materials to remote regions.• Combat the pet trade by: approaching governments to pass and enforce legislationbanning ownership of wild species; approaching development agencies to securesupport for facilities to accommodate, rehabilitate and, where possible, releaseorphaned primates; ensuring national wildlife authorities incorporate sanctuaries intoconservation agendas.POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS• Use confiscated orphaned animals as educational ‘ambassadors’ while they are keptin sanctuaries, with outreach programmes to hunting camps, homes, businesses, etc.to engender positive conservation values in local people.• Advertise in newspapers favoured by expatriates to educate against buying apes andother protected species as pets.• Design and install methods to identify, analyse, monitor, prevent and treatinterspecies viral and bacterial transmissions in areas where bushmeat hunting andcommerce, pet- and orphan-caretaking and other human contact with wildlife occurs.• Build capacity at local, national and international levels to achieve successfulmonitoring and surveillance of disease, as well as the infrastructure for healthcareand readiness to deal with outbreaks (BCTF, 2003). Investment to achieve this shouldbe sought on the grounds of public health and scientific concern. Expertise should beadopted in the fields of anthropology, primatology, epidemiology, virology, medicine,history, ecology, economics and politics (BCTF, 2003).• Prevent, or at least manage, the circumstances under which zoonotic diseasetransmission is favoured, and pursue relevant education and training (BCTF, 2003).• Carry out more research on the host/reservoir dynamics of Ebola to prevent thisdisease from exacerbating the impact of poaching (the natural reservoir is notcurrently known); implement strategies to minimise effects on people and apes.• Obtain greater funding for research. Ape populations are declining more slowly inprotected areas where the presence of researchers deters poachers (Marshall et al,2000). Researchers who involve locals in research projects also help to ensure thatspecies protection is in the interest of local people (Dupain et al, 2000).• Investigate ammunition being used specifically for primates.• Assemble and analyse all information about protected areas containing great apesthat is currently unpublished and inaccessible. This should give a clearer picture ofthe current and future status of great ape species.• Develop well-managed tourism to attribute alternative economic value to apes.Habituated troops of mountain gorillas in Rwanda, DRC and Uganda are a principlefactor in generating tourism-based state income.• Address other aspects of human-ape conflict such as crop-raiding, not just hunting.BonobosApplying these general recommendations to specific sites requires careful analysis oflocal conditions, coupled with extensive consultation with local communities and NGOs.Bonobos present a useful example of this, because their conservation can only beviewed in the context of the recent political, military and social upheavals of their solerange state, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).The creation of a 3,800km 2 reserve along the Lamako River, is considered one of themain actions necessary for the conservation of the bonobo. A proposal was submittedby WWF to the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) in 1990, butconservation activities in the region were largely halted by the civil wars in the 1990s.95WSPA/APE ALLIANCE94