Apes in the News

The local consumption and export of bush meat generates a total of $300 million dollars into the Ghanaian economy every year, an official of the Forestry Commission told the GNA in Accra.

Mr. Samuel Afari Dartey, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, said the forestry sector was the fourth biggest foreign exchange earner for the country and part of the reasons was the high earnings from bush meat. "Timber export alone generated 250 million euros last year and the forest reserves also attract huge numbers of tourists every year," he said.

Forestry sector is fourth to cocoa, gold and tourism on the foreign exchange earners chart. At the opening of a national stakeholders' workshop on the implementation of the non-legally binding instruments (NLBI) on all types of forests in Ghana, Mr. Dartey said but for deforestation and forest degradation, earnings would have been higher.

http://news.peacefmonline.com/news/200911/30933.php

05/11/2009
Click here to read on...

By Sunanda Creagh

AKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesia-based study is showing carbon-rich tropical peat lands trap more greenhouse gases than first thought, driving up their potential value on the carbon market and strengthening the case for their protection.

Huge amounts of greenhouse gases are released when peat lands are logged or drained for agriculture, and even more when the dried bogs catch fire and release toxic haze into the air.

But while most scientists agree preserving peat is key to slowing global warming, a team of 11 of the world's best peat scientists have found it might be more important than first thought.

"We are finding that the emissions from peat are very, very large, much larger than people expected," said John Raison, chair of the 11-member Peat and Greenhouse Gases Group, a joint project between the Indonesian and Australian governments formed late last year to develop a method to measure peat emissions.

"We are also finding that all of the assumptions to date have been too rough, far too rough for something that is to be sold on the (carbon) market."

05/11/2009
Click here to read on...

Press Release: Institute of Public Affairs

"Misguided campaigns by the Melbourne and Auckland Zoos and activists lack understanding of why forest and orang-utans are being lost. It isn't palm oil it's poverty", said Tim Wilson, Director of the Intellectual Property and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia today.

Mr Wilson's comments follow the release of Palming off livelihoods?, that analyses anti-palm oil campaigns and finds that poverty is the root cause of deforestation and orang-utan population loss.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0911/S00001.htm

01/11/2009
Click here to read on...

Press Release: Institute of Public Affairs

"Misguided campaigns by the Melbourne and Auckland Zoos and activists lack understanding of why forest and orang-utans are being lost. It isn't palm oil it's poverty", said Tim Wilson, Director of the Intellectual Property and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia today.

Mr Wilson's comments follow the release of Palming off livelihoods?, that analyses anti-palm oil campaigns and finds that poverty is the root cause of deforestation and orang-utan population loss.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0911/S00001.htm

01/11/2009
Click here to read on...

A dramatic photograph that shows orphaned chimpanzees at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon looking at the body of their deceased matriarch has become a massive internet and media sensation, spurring debate as to whether chimpanzees share human emotions such as "grief" or possess the ability to mourn

http://pasaprimates.org/featured-article/118

30/10/2009
Click here to read on...

29/10/2009

UN ambassador for the International Year of Gorillas, Ian Redmond, said during the World Forestry Congress that protecting animals and stopping bushmeat are not a matter of choice, but are actually essential to guarantee forest preservation.

"Forests don't have biodiversity, they are biodiversity. Because of it, if we take the animals, we are removing a very important piece of the forest life circle," he said.

Animals are important for spreading seeds as many of them can't germinate if they didn't pass through the digestion process of species such as gorillas or birds. According to Redmond, famous for his research with primates in Africa, 75% of forest depends on animals to keep it species riches and, maintain the natural cycle.

And more biodiversity, he emphasize, means a bigger capacity for the forest to deal with adverse situations, such as changes in the rain patterns that can happen because of global warming.

But, hunting for bushmeat contributes strongly to the extinction or significant reduction of some species. But in a number of tropical countries it is also an important source of protein for people.

http://www.climatemediapartnership.org/reporting/stories/gorilla-ambassador-demands-bushmeat-controls/

29/10/2009
Click here to read on...