• home:
• Fauna & Flora International in the U.S.:
• contact us

• Print this page
• Email this page

Illegal logging is killing chimpanzees

In West Africa today, adult chimps are being killed for their meat. Infant chimps are being stolen and condemned to a life of imprisonment and abuse. These helpless animals are suffering because of the rapid destruction of their natural environment.

The forests of Liberia are home to the largest remaining population of West African chimpanzees. The destruction of the forest through logging, mining and farming has left habitat patches small and disconnected, and chimpanzee populations isolated and exposed. Logging roads and trails, made by timber companies, are opening up previously untouched forest areas and are making forest wildlife easy prey for poachers.

Often adult chimpanzees are butchered for their meat. Hunting techniques include traps, spearing and clubbing. Distraught infants are captured alive and used as mascots by soldiers, or sold as pets at markets. The situation has been made worse by the civil war that raged in Liberia for 14 years.

However, there is hope.

The end of the civil war has brought reconstruction and reconciliation, and a conservation opportunity that could protect and restore the natural habitat of the West African chimpanzee.

We have to act right now if we’re going to seize the moment and help these innocent victims of human conflict. Together we really do have a chance to give the West African chimpanzee a safer place to live.

Please will you make a donation of whatever you can afford, to Fauna & Flora International today? Your money will help protect the West African chimpanzee and help stop the destruction of the forest.

We really don’t have any time to lose. At the current rate of forest exploitation, the next few decades will see the forests of West Africa disappear.

We have a chance to stop this happening – but only with your help. Please make a donation today.

You will be funding vital conservation work around the world, including our project in the forests of Liberia.

Your donation will help us to improve forest management, provide a ranger training programme and deliver a campaign to promote environmental awareness.

The need is urgent. But we must act now. This window of opportunity in Liberia won’t last forever and if we don’t bring conservation into the equation, now, we may not get the chance again.

To find out more about supporting endangered species and ecosystems worldwide, please contact Camila Iturra at camila.iturra@fauna-flora.org or call +44 (0)1223 571000.

Thank you.