The government of Cameroon has established the first sanctuary
exclusively for the world's rarest type of ape: the Cross River
gorilla, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which
helped support the project.

Boycotting palm oil produced in Southeast Asia in an "unrealistic" and
"ineffective" approach to conserving the region's fast-disappearing
rainforests, said a Princeton University researcher speaking at a
conference on the sustainability of palm oil. Instead, NGOs should
focus on engaging and working with the palm oil industry to reduce its
impact on the environment.

SHIMLA: With the farming community
being adversely affected by the huge monkey population in the state, the
Himachal Pradesh government has requested the Centre to lift the ban on export
of simians.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today it will award a dozen grants for a total amount of $641,265 to aid the conservation of great apes in eight African countries. The grants are awarded through the Service's Wildlife Without Borders Program and are made possible by the Great Ape Conservation Fund. The fund was established by Congress to provide assistance for the conservation of great apes facing a variety of threats, including poaching, illegal trafficking, human conflict, habitat loss, and disease.

With emphasis on great apes, scientists will explore how the brain creates a mind

Des
Moines, Iowa – March 31, 2008 – Internationally recognized research
pioneers from a variety of disciplines will gather in Des Moines May
7-9 when Great Ape Trust of Iowa presents Decade of the Mind III:
Emergence of the Mind, a groundbreaking symposium exploring the topics
of consciousness and mind in nonhuman primates, with an emphasis on
great apes.

A university research team has won recognition for its pioneering work in helping preserve an endangered monkey species in Sri Lanka.

Jungle holidays raise funds to protect wildlife, but humans harbour viruses that have killed chimps and could be fatal for gorillas and orangutans

BANGKOK, Nov 27 (IPS) - European Union (EU) demand for supposedly green-friendly fuels, such as palm oil, is coming at a high social and environmental cost in Asia, warns a new report released Tuesday by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

KOTA KINABALU: It's a low-tech solution, but it could be just what is needed to prevent inbreeding in the orang utan population.

New Straits Times By Zaidi Isham Ismail bt@nstp.com.my August 28 2007

IJM Plantations Bhd plans to spend RM250 million over the next five to six years to boost its estates by a quarter in Indonesia and carry out more cultivating activities.

Malaysiakini.com

Tony Thien Aug 28, 07 12:13pm

Penans in two areas in Baram in Sarawak's northern region are still manning timber blockades to stop logging from moving into communal forest reserves.

INDONESIA: August 7, 2007  

MEDAN, Indonesia - War in Indonesia's Aceh province has been a blessing in disguise for the orangutan, preventing logging firms and palm oil estates from entering one of the world's richest expanses of rainforest.

Even after 10 years of war, rangers are stunned by the mysterious killings of great apes in Africa's oldest park.Aug. 6, 2007 issue - The men huddled under billowing green ponchos and shouldered their AK-47s nervously. Summer rains drenched the plains and canopied jungle of Virunga National Park, a vast preserve along the eastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo that is home to an estimated 60 percent of the world's surviving mountain gorillas. The men allowed the rain to douse their cigarettes. Then, in single file, they began to move into the forest. Through the din of the storm, a shout quickly rose up.

THE world's biggest mining company, a supporter of the BBC's Saving Planet Earth campaign to protect orang-utans, is planning to raze some of the great apes' rainforest habitat.

Mon Jul 2, 2007 9:13AM EDT

By Gillian Murdoch

PALANGAKARAYA, Indonesia (Reuters) - It used to be malaria that gave
people fevers in Indonesia's remote, mosquito-infested peatlands.

Now it is carbon.

Investors around the world are dreaming of the billions the festering
carbon-rich bogs could bring in as the world battles global warming.
Peat bogs are the new black gold, some say.

World's great apes face disaster, says Leakey Hunting, disease, logging and demand for biofuels cited among prime threats David Adam, environment correspondent Thursday May 31, 2007
Guardian

One of the world's most prominent conservation experts yesterday issued a rallying cry to save the great apes, man's closest biological cousins, which are under serious threat of extinction.
Richard Leakey, former head of the Kenya wildlife service and now chair of Wildlife Direct, said apes across the world faced unprecedented threats from the combined effects of hunting, disease and logging. And he said efforts to tackle global warming through the use of biofuels could cause more damage to ape populations because of pressure to chop down their tropical forest homes.

Dr Richard Leakey said that growing pressure to switch from fossil fuels to biofuels could result in further destruction of the animals' habitats.

The chair of WildlifeDirect called for immediate action and proposed financial incentives to save forests from destruction as one possible solution.

He said: "Climate change will undoubtedly impact everything we know."

The great apes - gorillas, chimps, bonobos and orangutans - are already under threat from habitat destruction, poaching, logging and disease.

By Will Dunham Mon Apr 30, 9:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A male chimpanzee may beg for food from another chimpanzee by gesturing with an extended arm and open hand.

Under different circumstances, the same chimpanzee may use the same gesture to try to coax a female chimpanzee to have sex. And the same gesture may be used after two males fight as a signal of reconciliation.

In research published on Monday, scientists seeking clues to the origins of human language analyzed the way two types of apes genetically closely related to people -- chimpanzees and bonobos -- use such hand and limb gestures to communicate.

Dynamic and dedicated

By Juliette Astrup 

THE death of Monkey World founder Jim Cronin has sent shock waves through the conservation world of which he was so much a part.

World Must Pay Poorer Nations to Keep Forests - Stern

INDONESIA: March 26, 2007

JAKARTA - A major UN conference on global warming in December should target setting up a system to pay developing nations such as Indonesia and Brazil to keep their forests, an influential climate change expert said on Friday.

By Mike Pflanz in Virunga National Park
Last Updated: 2:35am GMT 05/03/2007  

Wildlife caught in the wars
 

Until late last month, the park's south was too dangerous for outsiders to visit as rebels swarmed through its gloomy clearings and down its vine-clogged tracks. Even rangers like Mr Kambale, from the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN), Congo's wildlife service, had been forced to flee, leaving behind the 380 critically endangered mountain gorillas, more than half of the 700 left in the world.

An estimated 120 of Mr Kambale's colleagues have been killed protecting the wildlife since 1996.

But now a ceasefire has been signed between the authorities and a dissident army general, Laurent Nkunda, whose troops controlled much of the land bordering the reserve.

Friends of the Earth and Ape Alliance have won an Observer Food Monthly (OFM) Award for their campaign to help stop the trade in palm oil from driving the Orangutan towards extinction. The campaign was launched in 2005 in partnership with the Ape Alliance Palm Oil Working Group, which includes Orangutan Foundation, Sumatra Orangutan Society, Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation and Cockroach Productions.  The award was for 'Best Ethical Contribution' to the food industry.

In a groundbreaking case at the Mödling district court, south of Vienna, Austria, a judge is to rule whether a chimp deserves a legal guardian.

24th Session of UNEP's Governing Council / Global Ministerial Environment Forum 5-9 February 2007

Nairobi, 6th February 2007-- The tropical forests of South East Asia , important for local livelihoods and the last home of the orangutan are disappearing far faster than experts have previously supposed according to a new Rapid Response report from The UN Environment Programme.

Ebola outbreaks kill 25% of world's  gorillas

Disease hits African parks, $35M could save apes from hemorrhagic  fever

December 7, 2006