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Dr. Anthony Rose returns from a month in Africa to report the profound impact Koko's story has on the people and their efforts to protect gorillas.

Hermosa Beach, CA, December 21, 2000. Dr. Anthony Rose, Director of Conservation for the Gorilla Foundation, went to Cameroon on November 17th with a huge portfolio. With support from Discovery Channel / Canada, Newman's Own Foundation, the Biosynergy Institute, and the Gorilla Foundation, Rose traveled from Limbe on the west coast to Lomie in the far east investigating development and education projects and brainstorming with colleagues on the future of great ape conservation. He returned this week, and will be reporting his experience with photos, video and exciting stories here at ../help/wpf.html.

Rose's first visit to Cameroon in 1996 on behalf of the Biosynergy Institute exposed him to the destructive impact of the bushmeat trade on African wildlife. He returned to form the Bushmeat Project and became one of the driving forces in attaining global recognition of the bushmeat crisis. "Today everybody is talking about the hazards of commercial hunting," says Rose. "Now I can focus on what I do best - develop innovative solutions."

There are two sides to solving the problem of people eating apes: reducing demand and stopping supply. With itinerant hunters setting up camp along every new footpath and roadway, law enforcement must become a community affair. A pilot project Rose helped design has been organizing villagers to manage community forests as non-hunting zones. The purpose - to protect and habituate gorillas so they can be studied by scientists and viewed by ecotourists. "Till now, the only wild apes I had seen in Cameroon were dead ones. It was exhilirating to camp in the forest, hear the call of a lone silverback, and cross his trail just a few hundred meters from our camp," Rose declared. By June 2001, the habituation team promises to bring Dr. Rose face to face with the troops of gorillas they have been tracking for the past 11 months.

What is critical here is that the villagers are benefiting socially and economically by controling their own forests and working to bring conservation and tourism to their region. "They will not kill or eat 'their gorillas' because they are worth more alive than dead," reports Mark VanderWal, Project Director and consultant to the Dutch Development Group (SNV) that administers the project and funds it in partnership with the International Fund for Animal Welfare. For most people in these new conservation communities, the wish to keep gorillas alive generalizes to "all apes." But outside the project area, most people still see the apes, like all wildlife, as meat. To reduce their demand for endangered game, we must change the people's perceptions and behaviors through educational interventions.

This is where the story of Koko is having profound effects. Nearly 1000 Cameroonians have read and discussed Koko's Kitten (Koko et son chaton) -- their reactions are overwhelming. "The visible excitement I first saw in 1997 when I gave the book to hunters is being replicated over and over -- with school children and their teachers, village chiefs and elders, even local business men and conservation workers," exclaims Dr. Rose. New research results are now being analysed, but Rose is confident the results will reinforce earlier findings that show a strong shift in attitude. He thinks adults are even more affected than children. The discovery that gorillas can be gentle, intelligent, feelingful beings is exciting to the community elder - it seems to satisfy a deep inner need that all of us have to feel community with nature. It expands our world-view.

Another 9,000 copies of the book are in storage in Yaounde. Chris Mitchell, Director of Cameroon Wildlife Aid Fund, has grand plans for the expansion of this innovative effort. Under his management, a three part curriculum has been taught in schools around the national capital. Thanks to Rose's travels this past month, teachers and townspeople in Cameroon's Western and Eastern Provences are now developing programs that will use Koko's Kitten as the centerpiece of a conservation education effort that aims to reduce demand for apes as bushmeat and inspire prevention of hunting in the gorillas' remaining habitat.

Photo essays of Dr. Rose's journey will be posted at ../help/wpf.html in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, you can learn more about the Bushmeat Project and read Dr. Rose's early reports from the field at the website of the Bushmeat Project -- http://bushmeat.net.