FOREWORD

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY | PROJECT MANAGER

Consolidating our three pillars

Dear Friends and Supporters,

This months’ focus was on the second and third pillars of the mission of the Limbe Wildlife Centre and Pandrillus in Cameroon: education and community sustainable livelihoods.

We achieved a milestone by completing the production of the series of 5 short videos supported by UNESCO to promote forest protection in Central Africa. That is a major step for Pandrillus Cameroon to become a leading organisation in Cameroon. Creativity, passion, and countless hours of work were the ingredients to make this first major project embodied into the Art4Nature programme real. Our collaboration with young talented artist Toh Bright was a great success and surely this would make the largest impact our organisationever had. Thank you to all the team members for their commitment to this project. We wish this series to be the first of many, serving as a pilot for a larger programme inclusive of traditional and scientific ecological knowledge, picturing and addressing the drivers of biodiversity and climate crises, and mainstreaming youth and gender as a force to make the much-needed change: do not harm, act with integrity and take responsibility. We indeed need to stand for this great looking-good but poorly implemented

ethics. You and us, together, we cannot wait for this change to occur on its own; we need to take action, we must go beyond and stand for basic principles of living together and make our project a model, no matter how modest and small-scale it is: we need passion, management skills, creativity,and funds, in this order, to make a change. We hope that through our videos, and associated 5 posters, 5 podcasts, and 5 billboards, we will contribute a little more to question people and stimulate thoughts in Central African youth and abroad.

In addition, to join forces locally, the LWC and African Marine Mammal Conservation Organization (AMMCO)have come together to conduct joined education programme and activities in Limbe to help change people’s attitude towards nature, being marine or terrestrial. The amazing natural richness in Cameroon and especially in the Cross Sanaga Region is not valued by people, as they feel disconnected from it, and are often considered a sign of poverty or under development. This must change in the mind of people. Africa must realise its path and rely on its human, social, creative, and emotional strengths to develop a virtuous system respectful of people and nature.

To instigate a change, locally, at a small or medium scale, we support and empower women farmers and ex-hunters to generate sustainable incomes by providing healthy food benefiting our animals. This month, we organised a workshop in Batoke, bringing 70 people together (65% of women) to share ideas and develop goals, and consulting the community members to assess the basics needs required to help families find financial stability. The Limbe Wildlife Centre is fully engaged to help alleviate poverty to reduce dependence on illegally harvested wildlife products.

We value biodiversity in all its forms, not only primates, not only Drills, Chimpanzees and Gorillas, our three historically emblematic species, or the African grey parrots, our flagship species for conservation. As engaged conservationists, we wish to promote the beauty, fragility, and resilience of nature to the public. We are grateful to a volunteer ornithologist, who has worked in several African countries, for her contribution in updating and completing our bird inventory and guide: no less than 62 species are present in and around the Limbe Wildlife Centre! That makes it one of the last standing natural parks in Limbe and in urban Cameroon that serves as a refuge island for biodiversity, along with the Botanical Garden. The LWC must be preserved because of that but also to play its critical role in raising awareness and engaging people. To finish on the education purpose, our school programme finally resumed with 1800 children taught each week in 31 classes of 9 schools.

Besides, our first pillar, ie, ensuring the welfare of all our individuals, remains solid and our top priority. Even though we lost one of our iconic individuals from the baboon group, Bonjour Bonsoir, to a heart

attack, we manage to save a baby mandrill this month (but without any evidence that a proper arrest was made, which is a shame), we have made great strides with the separation of the gorilla enclosure, which will eventually allow our gorillas to go out more often. The only long-term solution will be to transfer some of our groups into a semi-free enclosure in the wild. Due to the huge investment required and commitment of the government to support and sponsor such projects, at the moment, we work to use the space available the best possible and combine behavioural approaches to detect and mitigate stress and take decisions to ensure the best environment for each animal.

That is in this context that we have made great improvement taking care of certain animals that cope with more difficulty with captivity. Captivity is affecting individuals differently, depending on their age, sex, history but also cognitive capacities. This is the reason why we have been creating a chimp section for disabled individuals, physically or mentally. Being in a smaller group with less pressure from the dominant, enable them to find the peace they need to thrive in captivity, under observation, and with all the care we, as professionals, are entitled to give them. Suzanne (old chimps), who is having difficulties coping with the Island group due to her age will integrate her new group, which is composed of Ngambe (socially disabled) and Mayos (blind). Taking these individual characteristics into consideration is pivotal to tailor the best environment to each individual and never let them in a situation where living in an environment is detrimental to their wellbeing.

Finally, we are glad that this will be possible thanks to the fund we successfully raised through Giving Day for Apes. We reached our goals of 10,000 USD, even exceeding it a little bit. That is thanks to you! You are making all we envision possible and we are very thankful for your renewed trust and support.

This month bodes well as a very successful and rich end of the year and boosts our morale to prepare for Christmas in the best circumstances.

We wish for you all to stay healthy, warm, and safe.

Thank you all, as ever, for your unfailing support.

Stay safe and healthy!

Peggy Motsch

Project Manager