Since 1999, under the aegis of the Wildlife Protectors Fund (WPF), the Gorilla Foundation has sponsored educational and hands-on conservation outreach programs in Cameroon, Africa. The goals of WPF are to inspire humane conservation values, to motivate leaders and communities to conserve Africa’s magnificent natural heritage, and to save and protect gorillas orphaned by logging and commercial hunting. The Gorilla Foundation, by virtue of its long history of inspiring empathy for the species, is uniquely qualified to take on this challenge. A focus of this outreach has been our suppo...

Caption: The orphan gorillas are growing in size and number.

The following report was submitted by Ngum Paul Chu, a law student on scholarship with UNAFAS’ Conservation Values Program (CVP) Cameroon for a year. The objective of the scholarship is to produce a graduating lawyer in September who not only appreciates the need for conservation values in society, but also promotes them. It seems to be working and Koko’s Africa programme has been a contributory factor. He said that when he started with us in October 2005, he ‘appreciated very little of conservation, and had never bothered to see reason for it, …. any reason for conse...

Caption: Students signing visitors book at Sanctuary w. host Ngum Paul Chu (r)

The Gorilla Foundation is delighted to announce the inauguration of the Wildlife Protectors Award. This grant is designed to honor and support the work of individuals who at the local level have performed exemplary exploits on behalf of conservation, particularly as it relates to the Great Apes. The 2006 award, underwritten by a generous grant from the Morris-Rose family, is being bestowed upon Joseph Melloh, a native of Cameroon, to celebrate his decade of heroic effort as a Protector of Wildlife. Ten years ago, Joseph Melloh converted from being a gorilla hunter to becoming an advocate...

Caption: Joseph Melloh (holding child) and family with Dr. Anthony Rose (center) and Gorilla Foundation board member Pete Roberts (right)

Article by Penny Fraser, Cameroon Country Director for the Gorilla Foundation's Wildlife Protectors Fund.(WPF) in Africa; and assistant to Dr. Anthony Rose, Conservation Director. Since January 2003, the WPF's Conservation Values Program (CVP) has worked with 930 young people from the Yaoundé area in Cameroon, ranging from primary pupils to mature high school students and their teachers. The program is increasingly popular and has not only brought the subject of wildlife and environment to the attention of both teachers a...

Caption: Arsen, a Conservation Values Program teacher, shares the story of
Koko’s Kitten with enthusiastic school children in Cameroon.

Article by Penny Fraser, WPF Cameroon County Director. Collaboration with the Peace Corps started with two volunteers, Brian Gearing and Erin Swaider, a married couple, who were working as teachers in a remote town called Bafang, in the French-speaking West Province of Cameroon. Despite living in such a remote setting, they linked themselves into the informal Cameroon environmental education network and started a collaboration that now extends across the country. When the couple arrived in Bafang, they started to look for environmental gro...

Caption: Penny Fraser (left) meets with teachers who are using the book "Koko's Kittien" to teach Conservation Values in Schools.