Today, the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) and Humane Society International (HSI), the international arm of The Humane Society of the United States, praised the decision by the government of Sierra Leone to outlaw the capture, and killing of chimpanzees. JGI, HSI, and other partners in the USAID-funded Chimpanzee Conservation and Sensitization Program (CCSP), including the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary and the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone, have been involved in a multi-year project focusing on public awareness education, legal protection and law enforcement activities, and community-centered conservation and development efforts in Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Earlier this year, as part of the project, the two organizations produced a review of Sierra Leone's wildlife laws, recommending that Sierra Leone take administrative steps to provide urgently needed protection to its endangered chimpanzee population.
Responding to pleas for enhanced protection from both within and outside the country, Sierra Leone's government declared in a July 25 statement, "It is now illegal by law to possess, capture, kill or keep chimpanzees. The government will impose a $1000 penalty for violating the law, and has instituted a one-month amnesty so that those who are keeping chimpanzees can surrender them.
"I am deeply grateful to the government of Sierra Leone for taking such decisive action," said Jane Goodall. "Like the other projects we are supporting, our work in Sierra Leone has tried to better the lives of chimpanzees and the people living in proximity to them, as well as to protect the habitat and resources that are crucial to the survival of all."
According to HSI's Bernard Unti, who coordinated the organizations' legislative analysis and March 2007 law enforcement training in Sierra Leone, "The strengthening of basic protection for chimpanzees was our principal goal. This edict provides the basis for enforcement that Sierra Leone's wildlife protectionists have long sought."
The population of chimpanzees in Sierra Leone has been in decline since the 1960s and 1970s, when the country was a major exporter of chimpanzees, mostly for biomedical research. The contemporary threats to chimpanzees in both Sierra Leone and Guinea, which share an important border zone that provides crucial habitat for the animals, come from hunting for bush meat and the pet trade, as well as the destruction of habitat primarily through deforestation and slash-and-burn agriculture.
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Humane Society International is the international arm of The Humane Society of the United States, the nation's largest animal protection organization, representing more than 10 million members and constituents. On the web at www.hsi.org.
Founded in 1977, the Jane Goodall Institute continues Dr. Goodall's pioneering research of chimpanzee behavior -- research that transformed scientific perceptions of the relationship between humans and animals. Today, the Institute is a global leader in the effort to protect chimpanzees and their habitats. It also is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs in Africa, and the Roots & Shoots education program, which has groups in more than 95 countries.
