Rebecca has been working at FFI since September 2007. Though she studied conservation in her BA and MSc, she decided that the life in the jungle just wasn't for her. Having grown up in New York City, she has experienced more pigeons and squirrels than parrots and spider monkeys. So she decided to write about the impact that FFI's projects have on the ground.
Her current role as Communications Officer (Business & Biodiversity) has allowed her to focus her energy towards FFI's innovative Business & Biodiversity Programme. Rebecca helps to get the message out about FFI's strategic corporate partnerships and what they have helped to achieve for global biodiversity.
Just 110 cao vit gibbons and around 200 Tonkin snub nosed monkeys are left in the world, making them two of the world’s most endangered primates. However, thanks to FFI and our partners’ efforts, they now have safe places to live.
China and Vietnam have both recently created nature reserves especially to protect the gibbon and the monkey. FFI has been working hard to help the wildlife authorities to designate the reserves, in particular by ensuring local people were consulted during the protected area planning process. Habitat loss is the greatest threat to these critically endangered primates.
One reserve, in Khau Ca forest, Ha Giang Province, northern Vietnam, protects 2,000 hectares (ha) of karst limestone rainforest and supports around 90 Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys. It protects the most viable population and so represents the species’ best chance for survival.
The new 6530 ha Bangliang Nature Reserve, in Guangxi Province, China, more than quadruples the amount of protected forest for the cao vit gibbon. It is directly adjacent to Vietnam’s Cao Vit Gibbon Conservation Area, which FFI helped to establish in 2007. These two protected areas together contain the world’s last cao vit gibbons.
“This increase in the amount of protected cao vit gibbon habitat is a huge success for FFI and for conservation in the region,“ said Luo Yang, FFI’s China Programme Manager. “The cao vit gibbon currently lives mainly on the Vietnamese side of the border but it now has the chance to safely extend its population into China.”
FFI will continue to support conservation in both new protected areas by monitoring biodiversity, facilitating community engagement, helping to improve local livelihoods, enhancing the local conservation authorities’ skills and resources and also encouraging trans-boundary cooperation for the cao vit gibbon.
Read the media coverage:
BBC news
The Independent
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