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Volunteering in Cameroon
Name: Ofir Drori
Name: Ofir Drori
Name of organization / place we volunteered: The Last Great Ape Organization
Location: Cameroon, Yaounde the Capital city
Type of Activity: trying to stop the commercial illegal hunting of endangered animals - assisting law enforcement efforts and change in public opinion.
Duration: Volunteers should come for at least 3 month
Specialty needed:
Prior experience in Africa
Prior experience in volunteering
Media experience or experience or advantages to qualify you for law enforcement efforts.
Notice: Work is hard and intensive
Room & Board: costing the volunteer 50 - 80$ a month
Food and water: Can cost up to 100$ a month
Contact the place: lastgreatape@yahoo.com
To hear more in details please contact in Israel: will be given after email contact
Background Story
Saving the Great Apes of Africa
Commercial hunting means few more years to great apes' total extinction. "if we don't respond to the bushmeat crisis, we may as well lose chimpanzees and other endangered species in Africa in the next 20 years" - Dr. Jane Goodall.
The Last Great Ape Organization was founded in Israel by Ofir Drori and Israeli conservation colleagues, including Udi Ran - editor of the "Teva Hadvarim" geographical magazine, and the manager of the "Safari" - Israel's largest zoo. The Last Great Ape organization resulted from the realization that urgent action is required if the great apes of Africa are not to become extinct. It is a field based organization which seeks to encourage local law enforcement efforts and apply the local law to put an end to the crisis.
A hundred years ago more than a million chimpanzees lived in 25 African countries, now there are maybe less than 150,000 and healthy reproductive groups in only six countries.
A 1998 survey estimated that 4000 chimpanzees and 3000 gorillas were killed in commercial hunting that year, and marked commercial hunting as the single most important factor threatening these endangered species. The problem is expanding every year and the crisis is already much worse than the statistics of 1998 suggest.
This problem - a modern business of poaching and dealing with meat of protected forest animals has been named the bushmeat trade. The laws that are needed to stop the bushmeat trade do exist, but in the field the rules are far from being enforced. A meeting of gorilla experts held by the Max Planck Institute on June this year concluded that simple enforcement of the existing laws to stop poaching is the key to insure the immediate survival of the primates.
The organization is based in Cameroon where it tries to create a successful model for the hard task of saving the great apes from extinction.
The Last Great Ape organization encourages the capture of dealers in meat of endangered species and bringing them to justice. Then exposes the fact that the law is enforced and by that deters hunters from getting into the commercial business ,educates the public and gives the bushmeat trade the deserved status of a criminal activity.
"There are several long term solutions for the bushmeat problem" , says Ofir from his base in Cameroon, "- education, sustainable development training, promoting transparency, reducing corruption, etc., but for the Great Ape crisis there IS no "long term" - in a few years we will fare well to the last great ape in central Africa. And that's why it is so important for us to be here and show a way for man and nature to live side by side".
Ofir had a private unique experience that made him committed to found the Israeli organization and stay in Africa - "I saved a baby chimpanzee from death, his name is future. Saving him meant that I must take the responsibility of becoming a substitute to his mother which was killed by hunters. he is still living with me in my house, sleeping with me in my bed like a baby and I will have to be his mother till he gets stronger".
The Last Great Ape organization needs volunteers who are willing to fight the fight of the great apes. They should posses a prior travelling experience and be ready for very hard and intensive and sometimes dangerous work.
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