by Harriet Whitmarsh

Last Monday in London, the Great Projects team enjoyed an amazing evening in Covent Garden at the Hope 4 Apes event. The evening, hosted by Sir David Attenborough, was set up in order to raise funds towards the conservation of all the Great Apes, Gorillas, Orang-utans, Chimpanzees and Bonobos and now also for the lesser ape - the Gibbon. The night featured the world’s biggest names in primate conservation - Jane Goodall, Birute Galdikas, Ian Redmond, Jo Thompson and Aurélien Brulé - otherwise known as Chanee (meaning gibbon in Thai). At the reception that took place before the event, our very own ape man and Head of Conservation for The Great Projects, Leo Biddle (image on the left) and Director of The Great Projects, Afzaal Mauthoor, were able to meet and converse with the speakers.


During the evening, not only were we talked through the conservation efforts of each speaker’s particular project but, towards the end of the evening, a panel discussion led by conservationist Mark Carwardine, gave the audience an opportunity to ask the speakers questions involving their work, their opinion on certain conservation issues and future plans. There was an amazing turn out, which reflected the considerable amount of support in the UK devoted to the cause of the apes.
One member of the Great Projects Team, Julie Ion, found the newest and youngest speaker on the panel, Chanee, particularly engaging. He believed that by making conservation more interesting to young people in local and western communities, it would seem more accessible to young people and therefore result in a generation with a view more focused on the importance of conservation.

After a fantastic evening I was able to catch up with our very own ape specialist Leo Biddle, and find out his personal opinion on the evening. Leo stated that although he had seen all of the speakers before, he found Chanee particularly good because he brought a lot of enthusiasm and youthfulness to his presentations. Leo also found that he learnt more factual information from Chanee and was glad that gibbons were being recognised as part of the ape family. Although he found Chanee particularly engaging, Leo found Jane Goodall was, as always, an inspiration, stating that “she embodies all the virtues of great ape conservation.”

Most speakers focused a great deal of time on how education and employment of locals is crucial in primate conservation, like Chanee Leo agrees that education of young locals is crucial to conservation. Chanee set up radio kallaweit, in order to educate and entertain young locals, and this has resulted in a large number of listeners calling in and handing over gibbons they had been keeping as pets. Leo however does not agree with Jane Goodalls methods of attempting to change the cultural values of some older members of local communities arguing that it would appear that often values remain static and that there are no large changes.
Leo does however agree with the idea that employment of locals in affected areas is a crucial element to primate conservation. Employment of locals has been one of the primary focuses of The Great Projects as a company, stating that employment of locals produces a greater bind of values towards the cause of conservation. He also recognises the fact that orang-utans and humans are locked in the same communities and must live side by side, therefore supporting the communities is integral in order to have a legitimate conservation model.

Being surrounded by orangutans on a daily basis I felt that Dr Birute Galdikas presentation must have been particularly close to Leos heart. Galdikas was clearly very passionate about the issue of palm oil and urged people to boycott the product all together. Obviously because Leo spends so much time working towards a better future for orangutans, I asked him his personal opinion on a boycott of palm oil. Leo argued that he doesn’t consider palm oil as “inherently evil” because it is lifting millions of people out of unemployment, has resulted in better education for locals resulting in an increase in life expectancy and lowering child mortality, he does however agree that palm oil is without a doubt the number one cause for the demise of orangutans in numbers.

As to a complete boycott of palm oil, Leo believes that if palm oil was no longer grown, another edible would soon replace it. He reminds us that soy bean is the second most popular edible oil, and if that was to become more popular it would result in the demise of the Amazon rainforest and would therefore result in the further endangerment of species such as the jaguar and wooly monkey, therefore he states that a boycott on excessive consumption of all edible oils would be the best method of protecting the habitat of orangutans and other species. Humans rely on edible oils and to avoid them all together would be almost impossible, therefore Leo urges people to use sustainable palm oil, if they are going to use it at all. He does however agree that the validity of sustainable palm oil does have its problems.
Leo also would like to bring people’s attention to the issues of illegal tropical timber sales and that there needs to be more focus on the hunting of orangutans.



To conclude I asked Leo if he thought there would be any positive outcome from the evening he hoped there could be considerable funds gained from a gathering of so many conservation minded people, however he believes that an opportunity was missed, that despite the message of hope, numbers of apes in the wild are decreasing particularly in orang-utans where we are losing between 1,000 to 5,000 orangutans a year. Leo enjoyed the evening and hopes that there are future events to spread awareness.

An important aspect of the talks given by all the speakers is that they all considered ecotourism and volunteer projects an integral part of primate conservation, believing that projects, such as The Great Projects, are integral in both education and fundraising raising awareness and getting people involved more deeply than just by making a financial donation. Visit the new Great Projects website for opportunities to make a difference at our ape conservation project sites and give hope to the species.

Labels: chimpanzees, David Attenborough, Gibbon, gorillas, Hope 4 Apes, Jane Goodall, orang-utans