Please Help Chimpanzees

Please help save chimpanzees. Habitat loss, poaching and disease mean that these highly intellectual creatures are facing devastation on a greater scale than ever before. 

It is thought that there are only around 172,000 chimpanzees left – a fraction of the population 100 years ago – and that number is coming down fast. If we don’t do anything, estimates suggest that wild chimps could be on the verge of extinction within just 30 years. 

But it’s not too late. 

If we act now, we can still save their homes and prevent the decimation of their tight-knit communities. 

That’s why we’re asking for your donation today. Your gift could help support local teams restoring vital forest corridors between the last remaining chimpanzee strongholds. Your gift could also help provide rangers with the boots, equipment and training they so desperately need to protect primates from poachers.  

So please, donate today and help save chimpanzees. 

Fauna & Flora International (FFI) have been working to save chimpanzees and their habitats in countries across their range in West, Central and East Africa. Through partnerships with governments and local communities, we have ensured that rangers are well trained and provided with the essential equipment for their jobs. They have also helped to improve local law enforcement, providing these threatened creatures with better protection from poaching.  

 FFI have worked with local farmers to devise ways of connecting isolated patches of forest with each other. These ecological corridors give chimps the ability to roam freely through the forest cover, providing them with a safe space to find food and build nests, and lowering the frequency of interactions between humans and chimpanzees. Local households have even been involved in the active monitoring of chimpanzee numbers and their movements via the project’s mobile phone network. 

Map showing the distribution of chimpanzees.

In Liberia, a West African country home to large sections of rich tropical forest ecosystems, FFI has played a crucial role in protecting chimpanzees for over two decades – reducing threats to biodiversity from pressures including the illegal wildlife trade, oil palm operations and large-scale mining. These devastating practices are destroying the homes of chimpanzees, whilst simultaneously bringing humans into close contact with the few that manage to survive. The influx of workers into these areas greatly increases the risk of introducing deadly diseases into chimp communities in the region, as well as the hunting of chimpanzees for wild meat, which is decimating local primate populations. 

Despite being Africa’s first modern republic, Liberia has endured political instability, civil war, and severe Ebola virus outbreaks in recent decades. FFI have played an integral part in improving collaboration between stakeholders in the region, from a national level all the way down to a local one. This is absolutely crucial in maintaining a working defence for chimpanzees. 

All these actions are completely reliant on funding from people like you and – without them – the situation for chimpanzees will become dire beyond comprehension.