We are please to announce that a new publication has just been posted
on the PSG website:

Best Practice Guidelines for Great Ape Tourism

Elizabeth J. Macfie and Elizabeth A. Williamson

with contributions from Marc Ancrenaz, Chloe Cipolletta, Debby Cox,
Christina Ellis, David Greer, Chloe Hodgkinson, Anne Russon and Ian
Singleton

The PDF can be downloaded via the following link:

http://www.primate-sg.org/BP.tourism.htm

We hope to have printed copies available at the IPS Congress next
month. Translation into French and Bahasa Indonesia is underway.

We are very grateful to the Arcus Foundation and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service for supporting the production of this document.

02/09/2010
Click here to read on...

www.conservationtraining.org
<http://www.4apes.com/lists/admin/FCKeditor/editor/www.conservationtraining.org>

The Nature Conservancy; Conservation International; the Climate,
Community, and Biodiversity Alliance; Rainforest Alliance, the World
Wildlife Fund, and GTZ have updated their online introductory course
on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation and
conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) with new
information and activities.

This course provides a basic level of understanding regarding the
REDD+ concept. It begins with background information on climate change
and drivers of deforestation, then covers the essential aspects of the
technical, political, financial, social and environmental issues
related to REDD+, and finalizes with a basics on implementing REDD+
activities at a national or sub-national scale. The course is meant to
enable participants to more fully understand and better engage in
REDD+ policy negotiations at the national and international levels and
to facilitate the development of credible REDD+ activities in
developing countries through basic capacity building.

The course is free and publicly available at:

www.conservationtraining.org
<http://www.4apes.com/lists/admin/FCKeditor/editor/www.conservationtraining.org>

02/09/2010
Click here to read on...

By Wolfgang H. Thome, eTN | Aug 26, 2010
(eTN) - The Ruhengeri/Musanze area of Rwanda is best known around the
world for being the access point for tracking the famous mountain
gorillas living up by the volcanic mountains, which form the
ever-present background against the horizon.

Over the past 5 years alone, the number of tourist-quality hotels and
safari establishments has more than doubled, providing added job
opportunities while a large number of cooperatives have sprung up,
which provide local crafts and curios to the hotels, lodges, markets,
and shops where foreign tourists can then purchase genuine items
produced in the area. Porter services, operating in form of
cooperatives, have also allowed people to earn a living every day by
carrying the backpacks, water bottles, and camera cases for tourist
visitors tracking the gorillas or taking hikes up and around the
mountains, a service incidentally highly recommended, not just to
spread some income into the communities but also to ease ones' own
burden of carrying something, which originally weighs two or three
pounds but in the end feels like the proverbial ton.

http://www.eturbonews.com/18120/gorilla-tourism-shows-results-rwanda-local-economy

25/08/2010
Click here to read on...

This year, the Orangutan Foundation celebrates its twentieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, Ashley Leiman OBE, Director and Founder of the Orangutan Foundation, will be giving a series of lectures around the country entitled ‘How to save the orangutan’. The lecture will show a stunning array of images from Borneo including, orangutans, rainforest biodiversity and traditional village communities.

19/08/2010
Click here to read on...

Norway has agreed to transfer an initial $30 million to Indonesia under its $1 billion REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) partnership with the Southeast Asian country.

The fund will go towards Phase I of the partnership, which include "the establishment of an Indonesian REDD+ agency, development of a comprehensive national REDD+ strategy, implementation of an interim funding instrument, development of a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) framework, selection of a pilot province and the implementation of 2-year moratorium for new concessions on natural forests and peatland, commencing in 2011," according to the Indonesian government.

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0819-indonesia-norway_deal.html

19/08/2010
Click here to read on...

Sinar Mas faces backlash from false claims made in response to environmental campaign against deforestation.

Sinar Mas, an Indonesian conglomerate whose holdings include Asia Pulp and Paper, a paper products brand, and PT Smart, a palm oil producer, was sharply rebuked Wednesday over a recent report where it claimed not to have engaged in destruction of forests and peatlands. At least one of its companies, Golden Agri Resources, may now face an investigation for deliberately misleading shareholders in its corporate filings.

In the report, released last week, Sinar Mas claimed auditors had cleared its subsidiaries of any wrongdoing under Indonesian law and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a certification standard for palm oil productions. It accused Greenpeace, an environmental group whose campaigns against PT Smart have led major buyers to drop it as a palm oil supplier, of exaggerating its case against the company's palm oil.

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0818-sinar_mas_fraud.html

19/08/2010
Click here to read on...