News
Nigeria: Cooperation, education and enforcement key to Cross River gorilla survival
Efforts to save the Cross River gorilla, Africa’s most endangered ape, received renewed hope after the United Nations (UN) recently approved $4 million to help Nigeria further promote conservation and sustainable forest management. Environmentalists welcomed the news, which will help fund the country’s National Programme for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program,…
League City girl raises $700 for threatened gorillas
A gorilla species that’s been called Africa’s most-endangered primate has found an advocate in a League City girl. Berit Doolittle, 11, learned about the Cross River Gorilla from her mother Daniette Hunter, who home-schools her in League City. Wildlife advocates say this particular species inhabits just a small region along the border between Nigeria and…
Climate change aided decline of endangered Cross River gorilla
A now critically endangered group of gorillas had split off into its own subspecies about 17,800 years ago, say researchers, who concluded that the evolution of the animal, the Cross River gorilla, was shaped by ancient climate change and, more recently, humans. Some 1.6 million years ago at the start of the Pleistocene Epoch, a…
Cameroon “new gorillas” need protection
A Cameroonian environmentalist group is lobbying for the establishment of a new national park at Cross River on the Nigerian border to protect a little known sub-species of gorillas only living there. The Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) is the least known critically endangered sub-species of gorillas, living in the forest of both sides…
Princess presents top conservation accolade to Cameroon’s Louis Nkembi
LONDON – HRH The Princess Royal (Princess Anne) tonight presented one of the world’s top prizes for grassroots nature conservation – a Whitley Award – to Louis Nkembi of Cameroon, for his work to introduce community-based landscape and biodiversity management to the Lebialem Highlands – a refuge for many rare plants, birds and other animals,…
Ian Redmond and Princess Odette Autograph Gorilla Paintings in Support of Great Ape Conservation
During the recent International Year of the Gorilla Symposium, Ian Redmond – Ambassador for the UN Year of the Gorilla – and Princess Odette Maniema Krempin – UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador – signed special editions of Daniel Taylor’s Mountain gorilla and Cross River gorilla art works.
Conservation Groups Launch Campaign to Save Last Cross River Gorillas
Following the declaration of 2009 as the Year of the Gorilla, the African Conservation Foundation (ACF) and the Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF) are launching a special campaign aimed at raising awareness about the plight of the Cross River Gorilla.
Cameroon moves to protect rarest gorilla
The government of Cameroon has created a national park to help protect the world’s most endangered great ape: the Cross River gorilla, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), a group that provided scientific and technical support for the initiative.
Continent-Wide UN Action Plan Seeks to Save the Gorilla
Low-volume wood-burning stoves to protect forest habitat, alternative livelihoods to replace bush meat hunting with beekeeping and the promotion of ecotourism are among steps planned under the United Nations Year of the Gorilla 2009, launched today, to save of one of humankind’s closest but critically endangered relatives. Many experts are warning that without urgent action…
New National Park Opens In Cameroon To Protect Endangered Cross River Gorilla
Takamanda National Park, Cameroon (AHN) – A new 261-square-mile park created to protect Africa’s endangered Cross River gorilla has opened. Takamanda National Park in Cameroon now forms part of a trans-boundary protected area with Nigeria’s Cross River National Park. Some 115 Cross River gorillas, one third of the population, live within the protected area, along…
World premiere of a high-realist portrait of the Cross River gorilla
Vancouver, BC, Canada ‚Äì The first ever painting of a Cross River gorilla, Africa‚ most endangered primate, will be unveiled to the public for the first time on 19 October 2008, at the Mountain View Conservation and Breeding Centre, in Langley, BC, Canada. The author of this unique portrait is Canadian artist Daniel Taylor, who…
Nigeria, Cameroon Cooperate to Save Most Endangered Ape
New York – With just 300 individuals left in the wild, Cross River gorillas have found new conservation support from the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria, the only two countries where these great apes live. Representatives from the two nations agreed last week to improve transboundary cooperation to protect the critically endangered species, as well…