Sierra Leone chimpanzees pay the price of human expansion

They have their hands full at the Tacugama chimpanzee sanctuary, where a record number of orphaned chimpanzees are being delivered to their care, victims of the continued expansion of human activity.

Poachers hunt for their meat, farmers shoot at them to protect their crops, and a lack of political will means that more and more of their habitat is subject to urban development and forestry.

The founder of the shrine, Bala Amarasekaran, does not mince words.

"In the last 10 years, the environment has suffered greatly from the widespread construction of homes, logging and mining with the approval of corrupt politicians and officials from the Ministry of Lands, "he said.

Several species of wild animals around the forest, he added, have been eliminated.

The critical situation of chimpanzees echoes the central message of WWF's new Living Planet Report, released Tuesday, that the devastation of the planet's fauna and flora is mainly due to "runaway human consumption".

In the past three months, the Sierra Leone Sanctuary has received seven orphan chimpanzees, a record number. But these numbers only indicate the true magnitude of the slaughter, Amarasekaran said.

They calculated that for every chimpanzee received, up to 10 others could have been killed. In the last three or four months, between 70 and 100 chimpanzees could have died.

– & # 39; Sometimes they even cry for me & # 39; –

"Most chimpanzees that arrive at the shrine are under five years old and would still be drawing milk from their mothers," said Mama Posseh Kamara, surrogate mother of the newcomers to the shrine.

"Many have lost their mothers to bushmeat hunters, abandoned or sold illegally as pets," she said.

While she was talking, she gave milk to one of her new charges, a four-month-old baby chimp, while several others scaled her back and head.

"I have been doing this job for 14 years," she said. "They usually see me as their mother because I feed them and clean them daily, sometimes they even cry for me."

Although they do what they can to protect the animals' habitat, their efforts are often thwarted by the actions of local officials, Amarasekaran said.

"We have planted more than 4,000 trees around Freetown National Park," he said.

"But city planners have given it for the construction of housing, because of anarchy, greed and corruption.

"The government should stop all human activities around our forests to protect biodiversity.If we continue to exhaust our environment, there will be nothing left for the future."

– "obsolete" laws –

Western chimpanzees are the only subspecies of chimpanzee critically endangered. They have already been eliminated in Burkina Faso, Benin, The Gambia – and perhaps even in Togo.

According to the American Journal of Primatology, their population plunged by more than 80% between 1990 and 2014. Sierra Leone is home to about 10% of the estimated 55,000 people still living in the wild.

And the loss of their natural habitat only makes the situation worse.

"Sierra Leone is losing a lot of forest cover, because of human activities," Nyabenyi Tito Tipo, a local representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization, told AFP. 39, agriculture (FAO), to AFP during his visit to the sanctuary.

"Our forests must be protected, regenerated and not exhausted," she added.

But for Papania Bai Sesay, Biodiversity Officer at the Society for the Conservation of Sierra Leone, current conservation laws in Sierra Leone pose two problems.

"We have obsolete wildlife laws dating back to 1978," he said.

But the other problem was more fundamental, he added.

"Our forest conservation laws and policies are also not enforced by the authorities."

– Fight deforestation –

Beran Forster, deputy director at Sierra Leone's Environmental Protection Agency, acknowledges the magnitude of the problem.

"The major impact on the environment in Sierra Leone is human expansion in wildlife areas, bush fire for clearing land and hunting wild animals for bushmeat," he said. he declared.

"Deforestation by unsustainable logging practices is the worst situation the environment is facing," he added.

In response, they were trying to educate the local population about the effects of deforestation and replanting across the country.

International partners, such as the American Embassy in Freetown, are also helping.

They are financing an agricultural project to sustainably improve crop diversity, involving local villages near the Tacugama sanctuary.

But the change must come soon, warned Amarasekaran.

The Freetown National Park has a great biodiversity: many plant and animal species, including snakes, birds, butterflies, chimpanzees and other monkeys, he said.

But, he added, "If we continue to exhaust our environment, there will be nothing left for the future."