Fundraising

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Emmanuel de Merode, Chief Warden, is developing an environmental education project to be delivered throughout VNP along with Head of Communications, Francesco de Lisi.

The pedal powered cinema will be an integral part of delivering that programme through showing films / videos in schools and local communities. A generous sponsor, Animal Friends Insurance, has offered to purchase the cinema for Gearing Up 4 Gorillas (G4G) to deliver to Virunga. Elaine Fairfax, Managing Director, has very kindly made donations towards the work of G4G on previous occasions.

During the first half of 2011, there have been several ranger deaths from gun attacks by militia groups in the Park. Emmanuel will focus on promoting Virungas conservation messages to local communities and schools, together with the benefits conservation can bring to them, to counteract those elements who seek to destroy the Park for their own ends.

Emmanuel estimates using the cinema in at least 3 schools per week; reaching around 1,500 children a month and over 75,000 per annum. Screenings within local villages will considerably increase the number of people to benefit from the cinema. G4G are currently working on raising £6,000 to fund two environmental education staff for Virunga for a year, to enable this work to be initiated as soon as possible, after the cinema is delivered. Two events in Dorset, (a music event in September and an auction in October) will hopefully give a good boost to the fundraising effort. After showcasing the cinema at the events and through the media, it is planned to deliver the cinema to VNP some time in November. Madelaind Westwood of GAFI and G4G may well also be filming the cinemas arrival and use in Virunga, as interest in the project has been shown by national media.

Linda Nunn
Chair, G4G

With colleagues from The Gorilla Organisation, Madelaine travelled to remote areas of Southern Uganda, close to one of the remaining habitats of the mountain gorilla. In this first stage, the team reached nearly 14,000 people – showing them films about the lives of gorillas. The awareness raised is a vital step in connecting the local human population with the issues related to the conservation of these apes.

These villages would have been all but inaccessible to a roadshow that used traditional transport and power. However, the pedal-power model means that communities in areas that are without electricity and difficult to access by road are able to gather in large numbers and watch a film – sometimes for the first time. And they could even take it in turns to provide the power! You can see amazing footage from the roadshow on this YouTube clip: The Bike that helps save the gorilla.

Villagers in Uganda, by Madelaine Westwood

Wild chimpanzees are learning how to outwit human hunters.

Across Africa, people often lay snare traps to catch bushmeat, killing or injuring chimps and other wildlife.

But a few chimps living in the rainforests of Guinea have learnt to recognise these snare traps laid by human hunters, researchers have found.

More astonishing, the chimps actively seek out and intentionally deactivate the traps, setting them off without being harmed.

The discovery was serendipitously made by primatologists Mr Gaku Ohashi and Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa who were following chimps living in Bossou, Guinea to study the apes’ social behaviour.

SNARES: A SPECIAL REPORT

Read a BBC special report into how bushmeat snares impact chimpanzees
Learn more about chimpanzees

Snare injuries to chimps are reported at many sites across east and west Africa where chimps are studied, with many animals dying in the traps.

However, very few snares injuries have been reported among chimps studied at Bossou, which is unusual as the chimps live close to human settlements and snares are commonly laid in the area.

Now primatologists know why.

While researching the chimps, Mr Ohashi and Prof Matsuzawa, of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University, Japan, observed five male chimps, both juvenile and adult, attempting to break and deactivate snares.

On two occasions witnessed, the chimps successfully deactivated the traps set for them.

Wire noose

A typical snare, for example one made by the Manon people of Bossou, consists of a loop of iron wire connected by a vine rope to an arched stick, often a sapling.

On six separate occasions, chimps attempted to deactivate the traps

The sapling puts tension into the rope and once an animal passes through the wire loop, the trap is sprung and the sapling pulls it tight, around the neck or leg of an animal.

Such traps cause indiscriminate damage, ensnaring any and all animals that come into contact with them.

But male Bossou chimps have worked out how to outwit the hunters and deactivate the traps.

“They seemed to know which parts of the snares are dangerous and which are not,” Mr Ohashi told the BBC.

A rat caught in a snare is found by researchers

In the journal Primates, the researchers describe six separate cases where chimps were observed trying to deactivate snares.

Mostly, the chimps grasped the snare stick with their hands, shaking it violently until the trap broke.

Sometimes a chimp lightly knocked the sapling that holds the snare, before grasping it to break the trap.

But in all cases, they avoided touching the dangerous part, the wire loop.

In the video above, chimp can be seen seeking out and inspecting snares, without breaking them.

Life-saving skills

“We were surprised when we found this behaviour,” says Mr Ohashi.

“This is the first report of chimpanzees breaking snares without injury.”

The chimps’ actions may also reveal something important about how chimps learn.

Often, chimps acquire new talents by trial and error.

For example, when trying to crack nuts, they might strike one stone onto an anvil stone and miss the nuts all together. Or they might use their hands to strike the nut, which is ineffective.

But the Bossou chips couldn’t have learned how to deactivate the snares this way, as one mistake could be fatal.

“The observations indicate that chimpanzees can learn some manners without trial and error,” says Mr Ohashi.

The researchers speculate that the chimps may have learnt how the snares work by observing them over time, and this information has been passed down generations.

During one case, a juvenile male watched an adult male deactivate a snare, before then moving in to handle it once it was safe.

The researchers caution that snares remain a significant threat to wild chimps, and they are leading conservation efforts to scan the forest for the traps and remove them.

They also say that chimps in other regions do not appear so far to have also learnt how to outwit human hunters in this way.

Prestigious Award Will Fund Research into Roadshow Effectiveness

GAFI's Director, Madelaine Westwood

GAFI is delighted to announce that Madelaine Westwood, GAFI’s director, has been awarded a scholarship from the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation.

These scholarships are awarded anually to “outstanding individuals of great potential or proven excellence who need financial support to undertake creative or original work of intellectual, scientific, artistic, social or environmental value and to musicians for advanced training.”

The scholarship money will enable Madelaine to undertake research that will refine the effectiveness of using film for conservation education, not just for GAFI’s projects, but for NGO’s working throughout the world.

GAFI’s film roadshows have reached a huge audience in Indonesia and Africa, connecting local people to the issues related to the apes they share their environment with.  Now this research will help us to improve the effectiveness of the conservation messages that the films deliver.

Over the course of the next three years, Madelaine will use questionnaire data from film roadshows run by GAFI in conjuction with the Gorilla Organization (in Uganda) and the Sumatran Orangutan Society (in Sumatra) to establish criteria for creating the most effective film screening programmes.

A set of guidelines will be published for the benefit of all NGO’s that use films and media in education and outreach and for educational establishments.

The research will also lead to the creation and distribution of new films that match the criteria defined in these new guidelines.  Ngo partners will collaborate on the issues raised in each film and local communities will be invited to participate in the creation and content of the film.

The award of this scholarship is not only a deserved recognition of Madelaine’s contribution to conservation, but it will help GAFI to rectify the absence of  worldwide guidelines to support conservation education screenings and the creation of new conservation films to local communities.

Unlocking the secrets of gorillas to local communities

GAFI’s work to bring awareness of mountain gorillas to human populations in Uganda has received a huge boost. The pedal-powered roadshow project has received full funding with €10,000 awarded from the Van Tienhoven Foundation for International Nature Protection with a further €10,000 donated by a donor in the USA.

Since 2006, the Gorilla Organization (GO) has taken GAFI films to 176 schools in two districts of Uganda; Kabale and Kisoro. These districts are bordered by the last two habitats of the Critically Endangered mountain gorilla; the Virunga Volcanoes and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

In 2008, GAFI was introduced to the innovative idea of the Pedal Powered Cinema. This initiative aims to minimise the resources and access problems, previously experienced in remote communities. Bicycles will be used to substitute ever-increasing fuel-costs needed by large vehicles and the bicycles can reach remote places that cannot be reached by car.

The current programme aims to:

• Facilitate an estimated 288 film screenings in 12 months, thus engaging an estimated 43,200 school students and 14,400 community members.
• Reach remote schools and isolated communities who live alongside great ape habitats, ensuring greater impact on mountain gorilla conservation.
• Bring together communities and provide a platform to voice their conservation concerns, to enhance local governance.

GAFI would like to offer heartfelt thanks to the Van Tienhoven Foundation and our US donor for enabling us to further our work in Uganda.

If you would like to support GAFI to carry out similar projects around the world, we would welcome any donations you are able to give.

At this year’s Bristol Festival of Nature, GAFI and the Ape Alliance seized a great opportunity to raise awareness of ape conservation and the profile our work.

Sharing a stand, we were very busy running an ape colouring/drawing competition for children, whilst volunteers, dressed as gorillas and orangutans, rode electric scooters loaned for the event from our sponsor http://www.i-scoot.co.uk/.  We were also able to raise funds through bucket collections for the GAFI Ugandan Pedal Power Cinema Project.

Everyone at the festival and many more in South West England would have struggled to miss us as we were interviewed live on the Big Screen in Millenium Square at the festival and featured on BBC Points West.  Many thanks to everyone who helped out with the festival.

At the Stoud Festival of Nature GAFI, in association with the Ape Alliance, used a 14ft Yurt to house a pedal-powered cinema, with members of the public volunteering to provide power!

We showed films from the GAFI library such as “Green” www.greenthefilm.com/, as well as GAFI reports from the field and animated short conservation films.  There was also face-painting for children.

We were raising funds for the GAFI Ugandan Pedal Power Cinema Project through bucket collections.

Quite a stir was created by our volunteers, dressed in gorilla and orangutan suits, riding electric scooters loaned for the event from our sponsor www.i-scoot.co.uk.

The day provided an opportunity for good exposure and awareness-raising, particularly when we were interviewed live on Faye Hatcher’s Saturday Show for BBC Radio Gloucestershire.  Thank you to the tireless efforts of our volunteers.

Conservation Filmmaking Course

Conservation Filmmaking Course

When: Friday pm – Sunday pm October 22-24th 2010

Where: Whitwell Hall Country Centre, Norfolk

How much: £250 + Vat, includes accommodation and food. Deposit £50

Please note: This course has generated a lot of interest and places are very limited. Early booking is recommended.

There are many conservation and environmental issues that could be tackled effectively if only the people involved were informed or educated about the causes and solutions that could make a difference.

Films and the Media are one of the most powerful communication tools we have, we just need to make the right films and distribute them to the audience \ decision makers \ community \ corporation \ law enforcers \ government bodies who can create that change.

But how do you go about this? How do you produce a clear message, Who are your target audience, How long should it be, What style of film would be most successful, What equipment do you need, How do you record sound, How do you edit everything together, Do you need music, What part should a narrator play How do you monitor effectiveness???

All of these questions and more are answered in a very special training programme. It is designed specifically for YOU if you are someone interested in using films and the media for conservation, environmental issues, animal behaviour, social issues, education in the field, training, promoting your research or creating change in anyway.

How do I book: Contact Madelaine Westwood, 01491 575 017 / 07770 577 549

It will unfortunately not be possible to issue refunds of the deposit, thank you for your understanding.