African Great Apes Update Recent News from the WWF African Great Apes Programme © WWF / PJ Stephenson Number 1 – January 2005 Cover photo: Project staff from the Wildlife Conservation Society marking a Cross River gorilla nest in the proposed gorilla sanctuary at Kagwene, Mbulu Hills, Cameroon (see story on page 7). This edition of African Great Apes Update was edited by PJ Stephenson. The content was compiled by PJ Stephenson & Alison Wilson. African Great Apes Update provides recent news on the conservation work funded by the WWF African Great Apes Programme. It is aimed at WWF staff and WWF's partners such as range state governments, international and national non-governmental organizations, and donors. It will be published at least once per year. Published in January 2005 by WWF - World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund), CH-1196, Gland, Switzerland Any reproduction in full or in part of this publication must mention the title and credit the above-mentioned publisher as the copyright owner. No photographs from this publication may be reproduced on the internet without prior authorization from WWF. The material and the geographical designations in this report do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WWF concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. © text 2005 WWF All rights reserved In 2002, WWF launched a new African Great Apes Programme to respond to the threats facing chimpanzees, bonobos, and western and eastern gorillas. Building on more than 40 years of experience in great ape conservation, WWF’s new initiative aims to provide strategic field interventions to help guarantee a future for these threatened species. The long-term goal of the African Great Apes Programme is: Viable populations of all species and subspecies of African great apes conserved. WWF’s work is organized around six objectives: Objective 1 (Protection and Management): To conserve viable populations of African great apes through improved protection and management. Objective 2 (Community Support): To increase public support for great ape conservation by providing incentives and reducing human-ape conflict. Objective 3 (Policy): To establish relevant conservation policies, strategies and laws that eliminate ape poaching and unsustainable forest practices. Objective 4: (Capacity Building): To increase capacity within range states to conserve and manage great apes. Objective 5 (Trade): To reduce illegal national and international trade in great apes and great ape products. Objective 6: (Awareness) To raise awareness of African great apes conservation For further information on the WWF African Great Apes Programme please see our website: http://www.panda.org/africa/apes or contact: Dr Peter J. Stephenson African Great Apes Programme WWF International, Avenue du Mont Blanc, CH 1196 Gland, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 364 9111 Email: [email protected] African Great Apes Update 1 (2005) INSIDE THIS ISSUE beringei beringei), bonobo (Pan paniscus), 1 EDITORIAL eastern chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes 1 So much left to do for Africa's great schweinfurthii), central chimpanzee (Pan apes! troglodytes troglodytes), Nigerian chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes vellerosus), and western 2 NEWS FROM THE FIELD chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus). 2 Bleak news for the bonobo 3 Efforts increase to protect Grauer's The new programme is timely. The cons- gorilla ervation of Africa's great apes has never been 5 Mountain gorilla numbers increasing so important. As articles in this first edition of against the odds African Great Apes Update show, populations 7 A team initiative to save Africa's rarest across Africa have been experiencing mixed ape fortunes. While there is some encouraging 8 NEWS FROM BEYOND THE news for mountain gorillas and Grauer's AFRICAN GREAT APES gorillas, their situation is still vulnerable and PROGRAMME we cannot be complacent. The disturbing news 8 CITES 2004 - progress on great apes on bonobos shows that no apes are secure. and bushmeat 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This newsletter focuses on work funded directly by the WWF African Great Apes Programme. However, it should be noted that many WWF projects across Africa's forests EDITORIAL also contribute to the conservation of great apes and their habitats. Throughout its ape So much left to do for Africa's great conservation work - whether directly supported apes! by the African Great Apes Programme or not - WWF continues to work closely with national Ever since WWF's creation in 1961, the global governments, and their relevant ministries and conservation organization has been working to departments, as well as with local people conserve great apes. As flagship species, living alongside apes. In addition, many other gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orang- international and national organizations have utans galvanise broader conservation efforts projects that focus on apes and their habitats, within the forest ecosystems in which they supported in turn by numerous donors. Many live. of these agencies work at the same sites as WWF. Whilst we continue to make every In 2002, WWF launched a new African Great effort to acknowledge the partners we work Apes Programme. Building on more than 40 with directly, it is not always possible to list all years' experience of tropical forest and great the agencies supporting a given species or its ape conservation, the new programme sets out habitat. However, we welcome these other to tackle the challenges still facing great apes partners and their work and hope that together, in the twenty-first century. In spite of years of in partnership for a common cause, we can effort by range state governments, WWF and make a difference and stop the extinction of other conservation agencies, all of Africa's Africa's great apes. apes still face a bleak future. Hunting for meat and the pet trade, habitat loss and fragment- And as a last note - "what about orang-utans?" ation, diseases such as ebola, and conflict I hear you say. Well, this newsletter focuses on between humans and apes continue to threaten African great apes, but the WWF programmes all species, and many scientists predict we will in Indonesia and Malaysia continue to strive lose these animals forever within 20-50 years. for the conservation of the "old man of the jungle". News on WWF's work on orang-utans The WWF African Great Apes Programme can be found at: sets out to provide support for strategic field http://www.panda.org/species/orangutan interventions that contribute to the conservation of all subspecies: Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli), western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), PJ Stephenson, eastern lowland or Grauer's gorilla (Gorilla Gland, Switzerland beringei graueri), mountain gorilla (Gorilla 14 January 2005 1 African Great Apes Update 1 (2005) NEWS FROM THE FIELD In 2004, in response to the worrying survey findings, the WWF African Great Apes Programme started providing support for a Bleak news for the bonobo project to monitor and protect surviving bonobo populations in the northern sector of Salonga National Park. The initiative is Bonobos or pygmy chimpanzees – arguably providing park staff and researchers with our closest relatives – may have been hunted training and equipment as well as supporting so extensively that the survival of the species anti-poaching operations on foot and by boat to is at risk. stop the illegal killing of the rare apes. The project is being implemented by ICCN and the The bonobo is found only in the Democratic Zoological Society of Milwaukee in partner- Republic of Congo, in the heart of the Congo ship with WWF's Salonga Landscape Basin forest, and is much less widespread than Programme. As part of the broader Salonga the closely related and better studied Landscape Programme (funded by, among chimpanzee. Scientists had estimated the others, the USAID/CARPE Congo Basin bonobo population to be perhaps as high as Forest Partnership and the European Union), 50,000. However, preliminary results of the WWF is also contributing to the rehabilitation first systematic survey of a known bonobo of Salonga National Park and the development stronghold indicate that may be an over- of long-neglected infrastructure and manage- estimation. ment systems. WWF will place a park advisor 2 in Salonga in 2005 to provide technical advice Salonga, a World Heritage Site of 36,000 km to the ICCN management team and park (about the size of Holland), is the only national guards. park within bonobo range. It was created in 1970 specifically to safeguard the bonobo. In 2002-3, a survey of Salonga National Park was undertaken by the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) and the Wildlife Conservation Society, with support from WWF's African Great Apes Programme and other donors such as US Fish & Wildlife Service. It was conducted as part of the 1 CITES programme for Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE), which assesses apes as well as elephants. The first data from about one third of the park show evidence of very few bonobos living there. No bonobos were encountered, and sightings of nests and dung were only made in a quarter of the area surveyed, at lower densities than previously measured in neighbouring sites. In contrast, there was abundant evidence of human encroachment © Zoological Society of Milwaukee into the park and of poaching. The full survey results will be published in early 2005 as part ZSM project staff studying bonobo habitat in of the overall MIKE report for central Africa. Salonga National Park During the long running civil war in DRC, it “The war has had terrible consequences for the became almost impossible for ICCN to protect people and wildlife of the Congo Basin," said effectively the country's national parks. Lisa Steel, co-ordinator of WWF's Salonga Increased poaching by armed militias and local Landscape Programme.