Arcus Foundation Supports Efforts to Protect Forest Habitats Through Local and International Strategies
Nonhuman apes are under threat everywhere they live. As people around the world consume more and more products relying on resources that come out of their tropical forest homes, bonobos, chimpanzees, gibbons, gorillas, and orangutans are increasingly vulnerable to habitat degradation and destruction.
The latest grants in Arcus’ Great Apes & Gibbons Program support efforts to protect forest habitats through both local and international strategies to reconcile economic development with conservation. For apes who have survived forest destruction and hunting, Arcus supports sanctuaries that offer residents a chance to live with dignity in the most natural settings possible.
Conservation in the face of development
By raising awareness about the harmful impacts of proposed development projects on wildlife, the environment, and local communities, Arcus partners hope to change the corporate behaviors that lead to forest destruction.
Friends of the Earth received support for a campaign to encourage banks and investors to adopt “No-Go Zone” policies, whereby they would not finance large-scale harmful projects in areas of social and environmental significance, such as sensitive ecosystems and ape habitats.
The International Rivers Network received a grant for its work to influence the hydropower and finance industries to mitigate the threats to ape habitats and biodiversity posed by a global boom of dam construction. A second grant to the International Rivers Network will support a project to raise awareness about the potentially harmful impacts of the proposed Koukoutamba Dam on western chimpanzees in Guinea.
Global Witness and Greenpeace Fund will both work to protect the critical ape habitats of the Congo Basin by collaborating with local organizations and communities to highlight and push back against development projects that would destroy forests.
Conservation through local partnerships
Global Wildlife Conservation, The Nature Conservancy, and African Wildlife Foundation received support to improve conservation through collaboration with local partners in threatened habitats...