Institute News
Securing a future for chimpanzees
08-07-2010 - Nature
Fifty years after setting foot in Gombe, Jane Goodall calls for urgent action to save our closest living relatives
from extinction in the wild. Conservationists and local people must collaborate, she and Lilian Pintea conclude.
When I arrived in what is now Tanzania’s Gombe Stream National Park 50 years ago this week, I brought with me a pair of old binoculars and a notebook. It was 1960, the same year that a US satellite collected the first image of Earth from outer space. Day after day, I sat on a peak that afforded one of the best views of Gombe and its chimpanzees (see picture). I could see my camp in the valley to the south, and the dense forest of the lower
Kasekela Valley to the north. I gazed through my binoculars at the chimpanzees feasting on fruits and leaves and began to gather my first impressions of their daily life, unaware that this would lead to a 50-year study of chimpanzee behaviour, and to a career in international conservation, education, advocacy and fund-raising.
Click here to read more.
Canadian teachers are loose in Uganda - again!
Michelle Moore, Peel Board of Education in ON, Melanie Cannon, teacher at Mulgrave School in BC, Courtney Irwin, teacher at the York School in ON, and Christopher Mallon, English monitor, CEGEP Levis Lauzon in QC are currently part of the 5th series of Environmental education workshop in Uganda. Read their blog. Read more about this project.
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Grounds for health and JGI fight cervical cancer in Tanzania
June 2010 - JGI USA
Three facts many people don’t know:
- Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths for women globally
- Eighty-five percent of these deaths occur in developing countries
- Cervical cancer is one of the easiest cancers to detect and treat
Cervical cancer is a highly preventable disease. But in developing countries such as Tanzania -- where the Jane Goodall Institute works to promote conservation and sustainable development -- it is stealing the lives of women in their prime. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cervical cancer kills more than 6,000 women in Tanzania each year. [1] It is the most common cancer among women in the East African country -- 2.5 times more prevalent than it is worldwide. (Its incidence rate is 41 [2], compared to a global rate of 16. The next most-frequent cancer among Tanzanian women, breast cancer, has an incidence rate of 12.) Why the disparity? It’s largely due to a simple lack of access to early detection and treatment services. To help close this health-care gap in the Kigoma region of Tanzania (site of Jane Goodall’s groundbreaking chimpanzee behavioral research), JGI works with Grounds for Health, a nonprofit that employs a research-driven, effective and efficient medical model called “The Single Visit Approach” to bring cervical cancer screening and treatment to women in resource-poor parts of the world.
Click here to read more.
50 years of Gombe, a celebration of Jane Goodall’s Pioneering chimpanzee research
April 2010
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2010 marks a monumental milestone for the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) and its founder, Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE. Fifty years ago, Goodall, who is today a world-renowned primatologist, conservationist and UN Messenger of Peace, first set foot on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, in what is now Tanzania’s Gombe National Park. The chimpanzee behavioral research she pioneered there has produced a wealth of scientific discovery, and her vision has expanded into a global mission to empower people to make a difference for all living things. Click here to read more. |
Sustainable Livelihoods Project in Uganda
March 2010
The Jane Goodall Institute’s success in protecting habitat for chimpanzees and other wildlife in Africa depends on creating programs that are controlled and embraced by the local people. JGI's community-centred conservation (CCC) programs in Africa empower and give villagers the tools to build sustainable livelihoods while promoting regional conservation goals, such as reforestation and ending the illegal commercial bushmeat trade. JGI Canada supports a variety of community-centred conservation programs in Tanzania, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Republic of Congo. Generally, these programs focus on sustainable agriculture, health promotion, income generation and environmental conservation.
JGI Canada recently received funding from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for a three-year project in Uganda, called the “Sustainable Livelihoods Project”. The project aims to restore forests and waterways, improve the livelihoods of local people, and engage them in environmental education so that their local practices and use of natural resources are in line with what their ecosystem can support, now and in the future. The project also aims to create more opportunities for local people to earn an income from sustainable enterprises.
Click here to read more.
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Crop land in the Kyakatemba area encroaching on Bugoma Forest Reserve |
JGI Environmental Education workshops continue in Uganda
March 2010
This year, Meg O'Mahony, a biology and general science teacher at the University of Toronto Schools (UTS), is assisting our Uganda team in delivering an environmental education training program for Ugandan primary teachers. It is the second time that Meg is participating in this three year old program, as she was a member of the first team of Canadian teachers who participated in July 2008. Read more about this project. Read Meg's blog. |
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Facilitating access to clean water in DRC
16-03-2010 - JGI USA
In Burraya, a village of 2,500 in Walikale territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), lack of water sanitation costs lives, as it does in many parts of the DRC. Because the only accessible spring near Burraya wasn’t protected from contamination, villagers suffered water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, amoebic dysentery, and cholera. These diseases are especially dangerous in remote areas, where health care is distant and travel difficult.
In partnership with UGADEC (Union of Associations for Gorilla Conservation and Community Development in eastern DRC), JGI sensitized Burraya villagers to the importance of clean water and its relationship to improved health. We met with village leaders and other residents every month and also helped spread awareness through radio messages. Soon, the village asked us to help it build a well, which would provide a convenient water supply and help protect the water supply at its source. Burraya formed a management committee that would be responsible for ensuring proper use and maintenance of its water supply. Villagers volunteered to carry stones and sand from the river 2 kilometers away – an arduous task given the dense forest surrounding the river. UGADEC bought bags of cement, pipes and other construction tools from Goma and transported them by airplane.Click here to read more.
Roots & Shoots conservation sites in Tanzania
16-03-2010
Two Canadian volunteers, Una Huzbasic and Brett Painter from Ottawa, ON, are currently working in Tanzania and are actively running a Roots & Shoots conservation site near the village of Moshi. Two other Roots & Shoots sites have been created near the villages of Arusha and Morogoro. In Mweka village, located near the Kilimanjaro National Park, a program has been set up to engage students in the planting and tending to of seedlings, as well as the establishment of a tree nursery. When seedlings grow large enough, Roots & Shoots members in the area will plant the trees permanently. The trees will help to reforest the Mount Kilimanjaro ecosystem, absorb carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change, and prevent mudslides caused by erosion. So far, 1,351 seeds have been planted at this site, the first step in establishing the tree nursery. Sponsorship money collected by Roots & Shoots groups in the United States contributes to the creation of these nurseries. |
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Tree nursery plots and fish ponds at the Mweka conservation site. |
Roots & Shoots volunteer Brett with Sekievu, the Roots & Shoots regional coordinator in Mweka. |
World's oldest chimpanzee twins gain Facebook following
26-01-2010 - Discovery
Chimpanzee twins rarely survive because caring for them is so difficult. Mothers must carry them, with the extra weight limiting mobility and foraging. Mothers also often serve as their infants' sole protectors, so it takes quite a force of nature for a mother to haul around two babies while fighting off other aggressive chimps and threatening carnivores, even humans. Gremlin— Golden and Glitter's mother— was one such Super Mom. James Bond-style, she even foiled a double attack by two big aggressive females, Fifi and Fanni.
Click here to read more and to see their Facebook page
Helping local communities take the Lead on REDD
12-01-2010 - JGI USA
An important new project launched by JGI-Tanzania will demonstrate how traditional rural communities can lead -- and benefit from -- forest management initiatives that incorporate tracking of carbon data and the sale of earned carbon credits.
The project, which involves a variety of leading public and private partners, recently received a three-year, $2.7 million (USD) grant from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Tanzania. The project will give local communities and governments in a largely pristine area – the Masito-Ugalla Ecosystem – the tools and training to manage and monitor forests and to sell carbon credits in the global market through the financing mechanism known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Tropical deforestation accounts for about 17 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and REDD was a hot topic at the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which Dr. Goodall attended with JGI’s director of conservation science, Lilian Pintea.Click here to read more.
USAID grant will expand Tanzania conservation programs
06-01-2010
A new, 4-year grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will allow JGI and its partners to expand community-centered conservation programs in western Tanzania, a region rich in biodiversity, including critical populations of chimpanzees. Our partners include the Tanzanian district councils of Kigoma and Mpanda, The Nature Conservancy and the Frankfurt Zoological Society.
The USAID grant, totaling more than $5.5 million, supports our work with communities to address the root causes of deforestation and forest degradation in the Greater Gombe and Masito-Ugalla regions. In the next four years we’ll focus on improving forest management, including helping communities reduce forest fire incidences through training, outreach and capacity-building. We also will educate localities about climate change and help them develop mitigation strategies; promote sustainable agriculture practices such as soil erosion control; and support creation of sustainable livelihoods, such as tree nursery management or forest-based activities like honey harvesting. In addition, we will expand our HIV/AIDS awareness and education projects.Click here to read more.
