Ebo is the name of a small and valuable forest in Cameroon that is home to a small group of about 25 subspecies gorillascie still to be determined, but due to the geographical barriers that separate them from the lowland gorillas, it is thought that they may belong to the subspecies of Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli), which are at serious risk of extinction in the short term. .
We collaborate in a large forest research and gorilla conservation project in this forest: the Ebo Forest Research Project, initiated by the San Diego Zoo Foundation, in the USA (San Diego Zoo Global) and currently constituted as its own NGO (EFRP), and whose objective is to study this forest, protect its inhabitants, and very significantly its gorillas, through the involvement of local communities in environmental research and conservation.
La protection of gorillas and their environment also will benefit to the populations of the rest of animal species who live in Ebo, like other important groups of seriously primates Danger of extinction: the Nigerian-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti, act vellerosus), the drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus), two species of which barely 2.000 specimens remain in the wild in West Africa, or the Preuss's red colobus (Procolobus preussi), critically threatened, according to the criteria of the IUCN.
The full involvement of members of local communities in the study and monitoring of the forest gorilla population, creating local groups that organize surveillance patrols against the poachers in the forest, in addition to the implementation of alternative subsistence activities to forest hunting (bushmeat) such as mmaintenance and reproduction of domestic supply species, execution of replanting actions of vegetables of local species in the most deforested areas near their environment and many other activities of local awareness and sensitization.
Partners:
Ebo Forest Research Project (EFRP) , San Diego Global Zoo (Zoological Society of San Diego, ZSSD), EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquariums)