JGI News Update

Amidst the many ongoing threats to wild chimpanzees came wonderful news last week: a decree in Sierra Leone making it a crime to capture or kill wild chimpanzees.

An example of the billboards JGI uses in Sierra Leone and Guinea to raise awarenesss about the plight of chimpanzees.

The border region of Sierra Leone and Guinea is an area of critical chimpanzee habitat. But the hunting of chimpanzees for bushmeat and the pet trades, and slash-and-burn deforestation has left the wild chimpanzees there seriously threatened.

Earlier this year, as part of a two-year awareness and sensitization project designed to benefit chimp populations and support sustainable economic development in local communities, JGI and its partners recommended that Sierra Leone take administrative steps to provide urgently needed protection for its chimpanzees.

Responding to such pleas from both within and outside the country, Sierra Leone's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Marine Resources declared on July 25, "It is now illegal by law to possess, capture, kill or keep chimpanzees." The agency has instituted a one-month amnesty so that those who are keeping chimpanzees can surrender them.

JGI's sensitization project, funded by the US Agency for International Development, and conducted in partnership with the Humane Society International and other partners, focuses on public awareness education, legal protection and law enforcement activities, and community-centered conservation and development efforts in Sierra Leone and Guinea.

"I am deeply grateful to the government of Sierra Leone for taking such decisive action," said Jane Goodall. "Like the other projects we are supporting, our work in Sierra Leone has tried to better the lives of chimpanzees and the people living in proximity to them, as well as to protect the habitat and resources that are crucial to the survival of all."