and put in place environ-mentally-friendly practices. Finally, the third was a banner competition, where the artistic nature of the students amazed us with their creative and environ-mentally based designs. Anticipation is al-ready mounting for next year’s carnival entitled ’Biodiversity, our survival depends on it’.

Once again CERCO-PAN was the driving force behind the World Environ-ment Day celebrations. Or-ganizing the 2009 celebra-tions was indeed challenging but rewarding. Challenging in the sense that, as it was not held in 2008, it needed to be extra special this year, but rewarding because, de-spite the small budget and short time frame to organ-ize logistics, so much was accomplished to the satisfac-tion of stakeholders and the participating children. Over 4,000 students and teachers attended. We had a participating popula-tion of over 2,500 secondary children, over 30 National Youth service Corps mem-bers, hundreds of school children who came of their own accord, and about 50 officials (CERCOPAN staff, teachers, NGOs, Ministry officials and special guests). This

year’s environmental theme was entitled ‘Wildlife, our heritage’. The parade through the streets of Cala-bar was vibrant and lively, with everybody enjoying the occasion while becoming more aware about environ-mental issues affecting them both locally and globally. There were various activities leading to the cele-brations on the 5th of June 2009. Among the activities was the tree planting cam-paign, designed to plant over 5, 000 tree seedlings to pro-vide shade, beautify school environments and above all, act as carbon sink for the carbon economy. The second was a ‘cleanest school’ contest, where we helped schools improve their compounds

Students getting the message across

CERCOPAN leads World Environment Day Celebrations

I N S I D E T H I S

I S S U E :

CERCOPAN leads World Environment day celebrations

1

From the Direc-tor

2

CERCOPAN to help communities adapt to climate change

2

A tribute to Chief Patrick

2

Illegally felled timber to benefit Iko Esai

3

Drill Monkey Rescue

4

Staff and volun-teers

4

New arrivals at CERCOPAN

4

Wild mona gue-nons return to Rhoko forest

5

Orphaned mon-keys saved from homelessness by CERCOPAN supporters!

5

Want to be a part of it?

6

CERCO-NEWSO C T O B E R 2 0 0 9 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

P A G E 2

‘’The

organization, in

partnership with

DIN and NGOCE,

was one of the

only 4 teams

selected from 95

applications for

support’’

Claire Coulson, CERCOPAN Director

CERCOPAN to help communities adapt to

climate change

A Tribute to Chief Patrick

From the Director Welcome to the first issue of the newly re-launched CER-CONEWS ! The newsletter will be available for download online on our website, the blog and our facebook cause from the 5th of each month. Each edition will give readers an update on what’s been happening at CERCOPAN over the past month, new animal arrivals, events, exciting wild-life sightings, recent successes etc. in addition to stories written by staff and volun-teers about their experiences

here. I hope that you enjoy this our first edition, which is a brief round up of the last 4 months.

Its been a particularly difficult quarter for everyone here given that we lost beloved long term staff member Chief Patrick after a short period of illness. My heart goes out to his family. He was a kind- hearted, friendly and gentle man and I, like all of my fel-low staff, miss him very much.

We were also placed under

enormous strain when the global financial crisis almost forced us to close. In the true spirit of CERCOPAN however, staff and volunteers rallied together, supported each other and we came out of it stronger and more positive than ever. We have lots of new projects on the horizon and I am very excited about the future. I look forward to sharing with you news on these and other developments over future editions.

king in the forest, which he knew well; being a hunter in his younger days. On these trips they would climb the nearby mountain and recently, despite being in his 70s, he had taken an expedition up it with one of our researchers. Unfortu-nately, although being ex-tremely fit for so long, Pat-

We are very sad to announce the loss of our long-term and dedicated member of staff, Chief Pat-rick. Patrick was a member of the security team at our Rhoko forest site, and had been a hard and respected worker since he arrived 7 years ago. He regularly had taken tourists for days trek-

rick fell ill in June and de-spite considerable care and hospital attention, he passed away in July. We will miss Patrick tremen-dously and are thankful for the time we had with this gentle and kind hearted man. Our deepest sympa-thies go to his family.

applications for support. This pilot project will in-volve implementing aware-ness and adaptation meas-ures in the rural communi-ties of Agoi and Iko Esai.

The project aims to increase food security and income by providing livelihood diversification and improved agricultural

techniques. It also aims to reduce dependency on, and therefore the destruc-tion of, natural resources.

We hope this will help our local communi-ties prepare for the possi-ble affects of climate change, and that they may lead the way for the rest of Nigeria.

CERCOPAN is to take part in the new ini-tiative “Building a Nige-rian Response to Climate Change” (BNRCC)supported by CUSO, Mabek and NEST. The organization, in partner-ship with DIN and NGOCE, was one of only 4 teams selected from 95

Chief Patrick at our last staff party

Illegally felled timber to benefit Iko Esai

P A G E 3

In the ongoing campaign to curb the threat of deforestation, it is a sad fact that –despite all the best efforts– there will be some encounters which leave their scars on the en-vironment. The trick is to take these apparent set-backs and fashion a gain from the losses. This is ex-actly what CERCOPAN has achieved in the latest and hopefully last major con-frontation with illegal log-gers. Last year the most prolific and unscrupulous timber operator in the re-gion turned his eye and team of operators on CER-COPAN’s protected research area in Iko Esai’s community forest. It was not the first time he had gone up against CERCOPAN, nor indeed the village. Iko Esai’s Council of Chiefs, Forestry Manage-ment Committee (FMC) and Community Conservation & Development Committee (CCDC) had previously sued him in court for brazenly flouting local and state for-

estry laws for his own finan-cial benefit and to the detri-ment of the community. Openly declaring that no-body could stop him felling trees from wherever he liked, following CERCOPAN staff and volunteers halting his operations, it was abun-dantly clear that the time was well overdue to set some new ground rules. Thanks to the Gov-ernor’s special task force against illegal deforestation we have recently seen all timber extraction activities in Iko Esai’s area cease and several key arrests made. This action in support of protecting their forests has been widely and positively received by the community. Unfortunately we were too late to prevent the felling and sawing of a sub-stantial number of trees; leaving unsightly piles of unclaimed timber lying in the forest. This timber, im-pounded by the task force in situ, belongs to the state.

The difficulty facing the au-thorities was how best to evacuate this seized timber before illegal operators could realise a profit from it. CERCOPAN was facing a separate problem in that it has become increasingly difficult to source legally available timber in the re-gion whilst this necessary action is underway. We still have sev-eral other commitments to fulfil, notably construction of the Exxon Mobil funded Iko Esai Community Centre which had reached roofing level during this time. An agreement was reached with the Governor’s office and permission given for CERCOPAN to evacuate this illegal timber. Utilising it for the community centre, which will function as a cen-tre for learning and develop-ment, means that despite the original intentions for this timber; eventually it will benefit every man, woman and child of Iko Esai.

V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

‘’Despite the

original intentions

for this timber,

eventually it will

benefit every

man, women and

child of Iko Esai’’

The Community centre is already up to roof

height

P A G E 4

‘’Recently we have

rescued three more

orphaned baby

putty-nosed

guenons from their

uncertain fate’’.

Chris: the res-cued juvenile male drill mon-key

Staff and Volunteers

New Arrivals at CERCOPAN

Drill Monkey Rescue CERCOPAN received information that a Drill mon-key was being kept as a pet in a village close to our forest site at Rhoko. After informing the other primate organiza-tion based in Calabar, Pandril-lus, who specialize in chim-panzee and drill monkey reha-bilitation, we organized an attempt to rescue it.

A CERCOPAN repre-sentative went to the village, Agoi, and attempted to nego-tiate with the owner. The owner was reluctant to give us the monkey freely and so

our representative spoke to the Chief of the village. The village chiefs have a lot of power within the village and get to influence decisions made. With the help of the Chief we persuaded the owner to give the monkey up to us.

We discovered the juvenile male drill was called Chris and we transported him back to Calabar . As it was late when he arrived at our Calabar site he spent a night in one of our quarantine en-closures. Here he enjoyed

much more freedom to move than he had had before. So much so that the next morn-ing he decided he wanted more space and managed to run around our office as we tried to get him ready to go to Pandrillus! He pulled keys of our computers and messed up many papers! Luckily now though, he has arrived at his new home at Pandrillus and is busy making friends with all the other drill monkeys like himself. We hope he will be very happy in his new home!

was very pleased to finally have a playmate! As Angel was very nervous however, she clung to Maya con-stantly despite being the older and bigger of the two. Since then, our newest putty arrival, and yet to be named, has also moved in with them, easing the strain Maya had of already acting as a single parent at her

Recently we have rescued three more orphaned baby putty-nosed guenons from their uncertain fate. Maya arrived in June and Angel arrived in July. The two were immedi-ately placed to-gether and Maya

young age! The three get on famously and have re-cently been moved outside in our quarantine area full time. Here they have plenty of room to swing and play with one another, not miss-ing human contact at all; although they still get very excited when somebody brings them a new bottle of milk!

member at our Calabar site, helping care for and rehabili-tate our rescued monkeys.

We also welcomed Sam from the United States as our new Office and Finance Manager although, unfortu-nately due to immigration issues, we sadly saw her leave after only 4 months. We wish her well on her trav-els around the rest of West

Africa.

Finally, we said farewell to our Nigerian in-tern vet George, who has now finished his year as a corper and looks for new challenges with other type s of animals. We wish him well on his quest and look forward to hearing about his new job.

CERCOPAN has been very lucky to employ several new members of staff over the last few months. Isoyip has become the newest member of our security team at Rhoko, CERCOPAN’s forest site. Here he helps to protect the forest from over-exploitation and welcomes visitors to our for-est enclosures.

Joshua is the latest staff

Our three newest

arrivals, already

becoming the best of

friends.

C E R C O - N E W S

Wild mona guenons return to Rhoko forest P A G E 5 V O L U M E 1 , I S S U E 1

CERCOPAN Rhoko reha-bilitation centre is currently hous-ing a semi-free range group of red-capped mangabeys and two groups of captive mona monkeys. We choose these species to be rehabili-tated in the forest based on their current absence, as they had previ-ously existed there but had been

extirpated by hunt-ing and the destruc-tion of the forest. Mona monkeys are still present in the surroundings areas of CERCOPAN Core Area, but in very low density. In the last

few months a wild, adult male mona has been regularly seen close to our captive groups at our Rhoko rehabilitation centre. This individ-ual seems to be attracted by the presence of females within the captive groups. In mona monkeys, like in other species of guenons,

the males leave their group when they reach maturity, living solitary or sometimes in male-only group units, looking for another group to join. This is a manner to avoid in-breeding within a group and to spread the genetic pool across the population. This adult wild male is probably coming from one of the few remaining wild groups, and he has been naturally attracted by our captive individuals. This is hopeful for the future reintroduction of mona monkeys, because it gives a chance for rehabilitants to repro-duce with wild individuals, thus reinforcing the natural population of this species.

raising attempts so we could cover operational costs and survive just a few days longer, holding out for a miracle.

The support we re-ceived during this time was immense, and we would like to say a huge thank you to every-one who donated and fol-lowed our progress The mes-sages we received online kept our morale up during this un-certain period, and the way our supporters united was heart-warming. We would like to send out a special thank you to Wildlife Direct who, with their emergency website appeals and fundraising ad-vice, played a massive role in helping us continue under the strain as long as we did. In addition we extend our grati-tude to PASA, who donated emergency funds when they were needed most.

We are very pleased to announce that with every-one’s help, enough money was raised to settle our rent and ensure our properties in Cala-

bar for another year. In addi-tion to this, these extra days we survived made it possible to schedule a meeting with the Governor of Cross River State, Senator Liyel Imoke, who kindly provided emergency funding that will keep us operational until Christmas, when we hope the financial strain on the world will be reduced and funding grants will be more readily available. We would like to extend our deep appre-ciation to the Governor and his staff, whom we hope to work closely with in the future, im-proving the surrounding envi-ronment for people and wild-life.

As many of you are aware, the current global fi-nancial crisis has been hitting everybody hard, and charities in particular are finding it very difficult to keep themselves afloat. Some of you may have seen our emergency blogs that appeared when we were close to eviction just a few weeks ago. This was due to the un-fortunate timing of the ten-ancy renewal on our two Cala-bar properties coinciding with the disappointment of discov-ering large grants we regularly receive at that time were can-celled, due to the donor’s own financial difficulties. This was in addition to the already un-stable financial situation we, and many other charities, were already struggling with. We were worried where the 160+ monkeys in our care would live if we lost both our Calabar properties, and if the organisation would even sur-vive to continue caring for them. At times the situation was dire, with non-stop fund-

Nko; our previously released female mona

Orphaned monkeys saved from homelessness by CERCOPAN supporters!

‘’We were

worried where

the 160+

monkeys in our

care would live

if we lost both

our Calabar

properties’’

Pica, happy to keep her home

All photos in this newsletter were taken at CERCOPAN or Iko Esai by staff, volunteers and visitors.

Photo Credits: Sam Trull, Sylvain Lemoine Richard Carroll © Copyright CERCOPAN 2009

Design & Layout by Claire Coulson; Written by Claire Coulson, Richard Carroll, Amy Baxter, Sylvain Lemoine and Jerry Akparawa; Edited by Claire Coulson

www.cercopan.org http://cercopan.wildlifedirect.org

WANT TO BE A PART OF IT?

• Stay in touch with our on-going programme by bookmarking our home page http://www.cercopan.org/ and our Blog site http://cercopan.wildlifedirect.org/

• Volunteer for CERCOPAN in either Nigeria or

the UK. We offer a range of different programmes so there is something for everyone! Visit our website volunteer section for further details.

• Help CERCOPAN attain corporate funding. If

you work for a corporate sponsor who may be interested in funding CERCOPAN please contact claire.coulson@cercopan.org

• Undertaken a sponsored event to raise

funds for CERCOPAN.

• Make a cash donation to CERCOPAN via our

website...every little helps! • Buy a gift for friends or family from the

Good Gifts Catalogue (www.goodgifts.org). You can buy a month's supply of fruit for growing CERCOPAN orphan monkeys - called in the catalogue 'A-peeling Monkeys' for only £20! The price of the gift is passed on to CERCOPAN. So, it is an excellent way of solving your gift problems, and support-ing our work! Alternatively visit the CERCO-PAN gift shop on our website today.

• Donate useful goods and equipment such as

building and fencing materials, veterinary medicines, old laptop computers etc. or services such as printing, blood testing and architectural design.