Appeal for Donations

The Cross River gorillas in Cameroon need our help again! We received a request from Christopher Jameson, the Director of the WCS project for the Cross River gorillas in Cameroon. He identified additional areas where the Gorilla Guardian program should be expanded, and it is planned to add several new communities to the network. This would mean monitoring and conservation activities in critical habitat for the Cross River gorillas, in unclassified forest areas that have no formal protection.
Support is needed to conduct an assessment of possible target communities, to hold community meetings in order to select new gorilla guardians, for equipment and training for the gorilla guardians, and quarterly follow-up visits. During these visits, the nest sites that were recorded in the previous 3 months will be checked and additional data will be collected. Support will also provided to form Village Forest Management Committee. This will mean that the Gorilla Guardian network in Cameroon is strengthened and expanded to 11 villages with the recruitment of a guardian from Mantoh (Mende) community.

Furthermore, two new activities will be to confirm the presence of Cross River gorillas in Etinga and Mekwempoh and to investigate the willingness of the communities in this area to join the Gorilla Guardian Network.
These two activities are critical for continuing the Gorilla Guardian network development. There are reports of Cross River gorillas in the forests around Mile 22 (just outside the southern end of Mone Forest Reserve), but there have not yet been any field visits to this area to confirm this. This area is fairly far from the populations in the northern part of Mone Forest Reserve, therefore confirming their presence and recruitment of a Gorilla Guardian would be very important.

The total budget for those activities is 12,000 euros. We already transferred half of the funds, but we need additional donations to be able to cover the rest. Please help us to support this important project!