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ENDANGERED PRIMATES: Extinction is forever |
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NEW YEAR’S EVE The campsite is extensive and beautiful. Water is boiled on the campfire at the main open hut. It is used to fuel the wonderful wooden shower located down a path that leads into the rainforest. The nights are a welcomingly cool and humid. A nice change from the searing heat of the day. It is an exciting prospect to spend New Year’s Eve in the West African rainforest. We spend the evening in company of vacationers from the Volunteer Service Overseas, based out of the UK. We exchange JuJu and malaria stories. Fitting stuff to bring in the New Year. Lance is a former plumber who gave up the rat race of the First World to teach Nigerians about community development and the environment. He is from overseas and tells me about the various customs of his village peoples. He explains that as a white person he is considered to be a “Big Man.” In turn many village men have been trying to marry him with one or several of their daughters. “I just keep telling them that I have many, many woman waiting for me back home. That seems to put an end to all that,” says Lance. In two years Lance has had malaria seven times. Elane, another of the U.K. volunteers on site has malaria. Liza couldn’t make it because of a bought of malaria. Another worker from the UK at Cercopan is also recovering from the “sweats and the shakes.” “It always happens like this,” says Lance, “Malaria strikes several people at once.” Now and then we hear gun fire in the bush. It seems to come from Drill Ranch land but it is hard to tell. Simon Camp, Volunteer Forest Site Supervisor also from the United Kingdom, hopes that they are shooting porcupine and not primates. He further explains that, “There is a lot of work to be done to bring the local villages on side.” Scott adds to the conversation, “It’s a difficult situation when anything that moves in the rainforest has traditionally been fair game. The other day a small group of girls came from the village (of Buanchor) to view the monkeys. One little girl asked to see the “meat.” You can imagine how challenging our work is.” Education of the villagers is an ongoing activity at the forest site. The two tell me that the site has also been gaining status as a popular ecotourist stop over for North Americans and Europeans. This boasts well for a better New Year for the primates and their natural habitat. We toast to the drills. January is about to begin.
Buanchor: Simon Camp shakes hands with a local base camp worker. A meeting with the Chief of Buanchor regarding coorperative conservation efforts brings in the New Year. SUNRISE MOONSHINE As part of the experience, all foreigners must have an audience with the Chief of Buanchor. This emphasizes the importance of the village people’s involvement in the Project. New Year Day is the one day in which the chief will set out new rules for the community and as such, he has chosen 7:00 AM to receive us. The drive out in the Land Rover on the forest road is a killer after the drinking festivities which went well into the New Year the night before. The sites and sounds of the village and novel experience of sitting with a village Chief, however, make the short 5 km journey worth while. Chief Elembe—dressed in a Drill Project T-shirt, gold-stitched pants and a traditional woolen toque—and Prince Elembe, Chairman of the Village Drill Project Committee and Community Relations Coordinator greet and welcome us. The Chief is kind and humble. We enter his ‘palace’ (=humble house) with freshly swept dirt floors and clay stone walls and sit holding round table discussion of the New Year festivities the night before, the village, the Project and the rainforest. Camp introduces each of us and after much discussion he adds enthusiastically, “We are looking forward to your village ‘rules’ (=law) for this year. We heard gunfire last night once again. One rule will have to do something about that.” The Chief agrees nodding his head. The Prince asks, “Who is the
‘Big Man’ (=a person of status).” Camp points to me,
most probably because I am about the only one that expressed interest
in tasting the home, and therefore stiffly, brewed “Schnapps”
or moonshine in spite of a better word we have brought with us to present
to the Chief. As part of tradition, Camp, the Chief, the Prince and
myself toast the New Year with a double shot. The “white-lightning”,
a favorite amongst the Nigerians and a must at all social events, takes
my breath away. I gasp for air and barely manage to the tell the Chief
and Prince, “How lovely the Snapps is,” at 7:00 in the morning!
An hour of enlightening discussion ensues. Camp tells a well-known ‘Iyibo’
story about a lady who spent “many, many years” with the gorillas
of Rwanda. “The gorillas took her in like family. You could sit
with a gorilla like you and I are doing right now! There are now many,
many people from all over the world which go to the mountain to spend
time with the gorillas. They spend serious money to do so.”
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| Calabar: A resident Drill Ranch caretaker entertains a newborn chimpanzee between feedings. The Project cares for 13 of these endangered primates. | ||
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ATOP AFI MOUNTAIN The view from atop Afi mountain is breath taking. Three and a half hours of hiking and climbing through a maze of vines, roots, dense underbrush and spider webs has taken us to a lovely yellow grass knoll over looking the ‘Afi Massif.’ Magnificent 50 meter trees stretched in all directions as far as one can see, blanketing the substratum with hues of green, blue, red and orange. It’s remarkable for us to be here really. Less than five percent of Nigeria’s primary forest remains. The rugged yet vulnerable ecosystems are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Logging, agriculture and urbanization are fragmenting and destroying critical habitat for myriad flora and fauna. Albert Abang, an experienced guide from Buanchor, explains the traditional uses of the various plants in the lowland forest. In his descriptions he uses a flurry of elusive village names of the various flora. I have trouble even pronouncing let alone spelling them in my journal. One leaf cures cough. Another vine when cut and hydrated expands into a sponge. It is used for scrubbing oneself when bathing in the pristine and drinkable streams from the ‘Afi’ massif’. One plant is said to cure malaria. One tree’s sap can be cut out in chunks, lit on fire with the greatest of ease and remain on fire for “a long time.” “I have a lot of this in my house,” explains Abang, “It makes a good fire starter.” It is here that I can really draw strong connections between the primates and their natural habitat. Abang explains to me how he and his father hunted for primates when he was a boy. “We never speak. When the wind blows you move. They cannot hear your noise. And when the wind stops you stop. The animals will come to you.” He then describes how easily a group of drills can be hunted, “The big male stays on the ground, fending off the dog. All of the others go up and into the trees. Sometimes we shoot 40 guns.” I don’t ask him if he means 40 kills but in and that a single group of drills range up to 30 animals one can envision how hunting and habitat destruction has brought the drills so close to extinction. A recent survey in Nigeria and Cameroon conducted by Jenkins and Gadsby found that in all areas hunters reported drills on the decline in terms of group size and group density, and ‘super-groups,’ in which two or more groups coalesce for short periods of time, are now rarely encountered. The best time to encounter the primates in the Afi River forest reserve is in the rainy season. In May or June the western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees and monkeys are easier to track and approach. The absence of dry leaves enhances the ability of eco-tourists to be stealthy. Abang explains to me that the rainy season is also a peak period for hunting activity due to the lack of farm work under the wet conditions. “During the rainy season most of the fruit in the rainforest ripens. There is much animal activity in the rainforest,” adds the seasoned guide, “This also makes it easier to approach the primates.” As I look out across the Afi massif, I recount my journeys with the conservationists and their rarest of the rare. I have been deeply impressed by my journeys to one of nature’s last Eden’s. At the grassroots level, stories such as Abang’s mark a necessary transition for his people from hunter to protector. Efforts such as those of Cercopan and The Drill Projects plant a new strain of seeds for Nigeria. Seeds encouraging ecotourism and mobilizing plans of protective action. Seeds which may yet sustain extremely rich and diverse yet increasing rare forest resources, in a country too often portrayed internationally as a developing nation not worthy of reviving. |
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Base camp: A male Drill, alerted to my presence, stands guard behind the enclosure fence, directly in front of me. Males assert their dominance by “smiling” with teeth exposed. His grin reminds me that the animals are wild. Extinction is forever. The future of the species depends on the conservation and protection measures underway in the Afi River forest reserve, Nigeria.
Greg Shaw is co-author of a best-selling book on the environment. His writing and photography have appeared in magazine, environmental education, scientific and government publications actively promoting conservation and protection of bio-diversity and cultural heritage.
For information inquiries regarding the nonprofit organizations presented in this ejournal: Cercopan: CERCOPAN is funded solely through charitable donations, both in Nigeria and abroad. The International Primate Protection League (PO Box 766, Summerville, SC 29484, USA, or, 166 Gilmore Rd. Lewsham, United Kingdom SE13 5AE) accepts donations on our behalf. Of course, any donation, no matter the size, is always welcome at CERCOPAN. In Calabar, we are located at 4 Ishie Lane: Off M. Mohammed
Highway, behind Henss Buding & Access Bank. Mail: CERCOPAN c/o Housing
Estate, P.O. Box 826, Calabar, Cross Rver State, Ngeria. Telephone:
087 234 670; 0803 717 6920 E-mail: cercopan@compuserve.com Internet:
http:/www.cercopan.org The Drill Project: Pandrillus, Drill Rehabilitation & Breeding Center drill@infoweb.abs.net
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