Imagine 13,000 animals across 90,000 acres of wilderness in Kenya!

Well, Secret Safari – Into the Wild is heading off to just that, on Channel 4 on Tuesday 26 January 2021 at 8pm!

This programme visits the Ol Pejeta reserve.  It’s home to animals such as hippos, rhinos, elephants, cocktail ants and crowned cranes. 

The programme tells the life and death stories of the animals through the rangers who protect them.

The first programme includes a pride of lionesses left hungry when their alpha hunter vanishes, a crane romance and the birth of a critically endangered rhino.  There are six programmes in the series. 

Andrew Scott is the narrator.

Ol Pejeta is home to two of the world’s last remaining northern white rhinos.   It’s a sanctuary for over 110 critically endangered black rhinos. 

Highly trained rhino protection squads are employed by the Conservancy, which partners with international veterinary experts.   Data is frequently gathered on each animal.   The Conservancy is a role model for rhino conservation in East Africa.

Help safeguard rhinos by making a donation at Global Giving
Image © Ol Pejeta

Find out about rhinos at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy

Visit the Ol Pejeta Conservancy website here.

Ol Pejeta is also home to the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary.   It was established through agreement between the conservancy, the Kenya Wildlife Service and the Jane Goodall Institute to provide lifelong refuge to orphaned and abused chimpanzees from West and Central Africa.  Currently there are 36 chimpanzees there, all getting a chance to start over.

Ol Pejeta's mission (and I quote) is:

To conserve wildlife, provide a sanctuary for great apes and to generate income through wildlife tourism and complementary enterprise for reinvestment in conservation and communities.

and their vision is (and again I quote):

To become an innovative and sustainable development model that conserves biodiversity (particularly endangered species) and contributes to economic growth and the improvement of livelihoods in rural communities.

You can be a part of this journey and make a difference to wildlife by supporting Ol Pejeta's work.

So let's introduce Helping Rhinos who partner Ol Pejeta:

Ways to help:

• Spread the word
• Donate to the Global Giving campaign, Safeguarding Ol Pejeta’s Rhino Populations, either a one off donation or a monthly one
• There are other ways to help here - you could become a rhino guardian and donate monthly
• Head off to Helping Rhinos who partner Ol Pejeta.  Though Helping Rhinos and their adoption centre, you can adopt a rhino, or adopt an anti-poaching dog, or adopt a ranger to help Ol Pejeta look after wildlife.  Visit their adoption centre here.

Adopt an Anti-Poaching Dog
Image ©Helping Rhinos

OIPA Cameroon is looking for organisations to fund research into pangolins in Cameroon.

Pangolins are highly endangered and threatened by human and human-related activities there.  They are poached and traded on an international scale, and their scales, skins and meat are used for food, traditional medicine and as fashion accessories.

Find out more about this research proposal
image © OIPA Cameroon

Cameroon has three of the four species of African pangolin, but very little information is available on how to help conservation efforts there. 

So an OIPA delegation in the country have prepared a research proposal.  They want to provide new data on the distribution, abundance and threats that this endangered pangolins face in Campo Ma’am National Park.   The park is situated in the south western corner of Cameroon.

If the research can find this data out, then it can put forward a conservation management plan for review and potential implementation by the Government and National Park authority. 

All three species are listed in Appendix 1 of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species, whilst the IUCN Red List them as vulnerable or threatened.

Although a Ministerial order was signed back in 2017 with full protection for the three species of pangolin, there is still evidence of illegal trade and trafficking in Cameroon. 

So despite all these measures, Cameroon pangolins are threatened and research needs to be done to ascertain the best way forward to protect them.

If your organisation can help fund the research or you need more information, please email  [email protected]

Do you love bats and want to know how to help them?

Have you found a bat in your home?

One of the problems facing bats is that many people who find them in their homes try to kill them with poison.   This is wrong – there are alternatives to dealing with bats.

Batpoison.com was set up because research showed that 400 to a thousand people in the US search for the term “bat poison” every month;   even more looked for “how to kill bats”. 

Batpoison.com is designed to help people discover why bat poison is bad, and to give you alternatives to removing bats from homes.   It’s also got information on how bats benefit us.

Visit Batpoison.com to find out more.

Birdlife International report that there’s a new forest conservation initiative to save one of West Africa’s few remaining tropical forests.

The area covers over 350,000 hectares and it’s called the Gola Forest.   It goes across the Liberia and Sierra Leone borders, and it’s the largest remaining block of Upper Guinean Forest.

The area is an important for one for biodiversity – it boasts:

• 49 mammal species
• 327 bird species
• 43 amphibians species
• over 200 species of tree
• over 60 species there threatened call this home including - it’s got the world’s second biggest population of Western chimpanzees.
• it’s an overall carbon sink and helps to reduce the impacts of climate change.
  
  

But the area has suffered deforestation and degradation

Logging, agriculture, mining and conflict have caused the loss of vital biodiversity.   It’s reduced the ability of the area to cope with climate change – and impacted on local people who depend on the forests for their livelihood.

There’s protection now in place

The governments of Liberia and Sierra Leone have signed agreements in 2011 and 2020 to manage the forest and protect the biodiversity there. 

And back in August 2020, the EC funded Programme to Support the Conservation of Forest Ecosystems in West Africa was implemented to conserve the Gola Forest. 

The programme has been implemented by:

• BirdLife Partners the Society for the Conservation of Nature of Liberia (SCNL) and the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone,
• The Gola Rainforest Conservation Limited by Guarantee
• Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB - BirdLife in the UK), and 
• BirdLife International.

The impact on locals

The project should help to manage conflict between communities sharing the same forest resources.  It will support the management of five protected areas.   Local people will be trained and empowered to undertake the management of the forest – the programme will be training community eco-guards so that there are joint patrols by the two countries.   A bio-monitoring programme will also be put in place.

As eco-guards, local communities will be involved in protecting the forests which will in turn give them an income.  Many were hunters, miners, loggers and farmers before.

Two community based ecotourism ventures will be supported by the project, and a sustainable logging model in Liberia will be piloted.  Over 50,000 people in 160 communities will benefit from the programme.

Visit Birdlife International for more information