CERCOPAN

Category: CERCOPAN battles illegal loggers, CERCOPAN helping communities in Nigeria, Cercopan, Communities, Conservation, Nigeria | Date: Oct 09 2009 | By: cercopan

By Richard Carroll - Rhoko Manager

“It’s a good idea” said the chief, “I like it, but this idea of an election..it can’t work. No, better we just make an appointment of good people.” “But Chief,” I replied despairingly, seeing the previous night’s 3 hours of negotiation over this point slipping swiftly away with each nod of his advisor’s head, “we discussed this, we need to have a democratic election. Appointments have been tried before and they don’t work; these people represent the community’s voice- they need to be chosen by the community.” So began another round of debating on this point. It was a topic of alarming regularity over the next two weeks with apparently nobody in the village believing it was possible to hold a trouble free election. “It has never happened here; it’s not possible” was the consensus. “Trust me, it can be done.” Was my reply through gritted teeth, as I then settled down to once again explain my plan.

CCDC elections -  Richard distributing voting tokens

To be fair I understood the concerns, the election we were planning to hold was to re-inaugurate the village Community Conservation & Development Committee (CCDC). This body initially conceived by CERCOPAN has the responsibility of deciding how the substantial funds from tourism royalties and other CERCOPAN related payments are spent. They should be used to finance any community development project that the CCDC and Chiefs’ Council agree upon, providing it does not detract from concepts of sustainability and conservation. The chiefs were worried that certain timber dealers and others hungry for influence in the area would try to hijack this committee and disrupt the peace in the village. There had been similar attempts recently as those involved in illegal timber exploitation are gradually being squeezed out by the community’s collaboration with state forestry departments; and they were looking for a way to stem the tide.

  At the polling booths

I had already held a series of meetings with people I felt were key individuals in the community. These were young, literate people with a passionate desire to see their community make the most of its opportunities. We had been sitting on the floor around the bedside of one of my staff- Matthew, who was recovering from a motorbike accident, discussing village politics. As we spoke these people not only bemoaned the lack of influence they felt they had but also put forward a vision of how they believed things could be better. It struck me, this was the core of what the CCDC should be and within a few days I asked them to gather themselves and any like-minded individuals they could find for a strategic meeting. Within a few weeks this group had helped to pass out information leaflets, discussed relevant issues and encouraged other people to nominate candidates they would trust to represent their needs in the decision making process. General assembly meetings and manifesto nights for the proposed candidates all helped to add to the buzz being generated in the village.

Iko Esai residents waiting to vote

The morning of the election came around; I set off from Calabar at 6am, having been up all night constructing ballot boxes, and promptly ran into trouble. Heavy rains the night before had rendered one section of the dirt road impassable and I found myself axle deep in a quagmire of sticky orange mud. With no small help from a group of friends from the nearest village, who had happened upon my predicament, as they ferried colossal mounds of bananas to the highway on motorbikes, I was finally freed; arriving tired, filthy and apprehensive to the village. Rapidly organising ourselves, the election team swung into action. Registration and voting stations were manned, security employed at the door and the village bell rung to announce the start of proceedings.

Women Registering for the election

I am told that there was an element of the village connected to the timber extractors grumbling amongst themselves that they were going to disrupt the day; that no election would hold unless they said so. However, they failed to leave their corner of discontent and so missed the atmosphere of celebration 5 hours after polls opened and the successful candidates were announced to the massed crowd. It was extremely gratifying to hear the talk outside the classroom which served as a polling station; “free and fair” could commonly be discerned amongst the other incoherent jumble of triumphant conversations in the local Iko dialect. So happy were the participants with the days events, that I may have made a rod for my own back as it has been suggested we assist with the re-election of several other bodies in the village! I couldn’t be happier with the group of men and women that the community chose to represent them over the next 3 years and despite their initial misgivings, neither it seems could the chiefs. I’m not entirely sure, however, how I feel about the new nickname they bestowed on me; ‘The Bulldozer’- though it does have a certain ring to it.

Tags: Cercopan, Community Conservation, Iko Esai, Rainforest protection, Sustainable development

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Category: CERCOPAN staff fighting to save rainforest and endanger, Cercopan, Communities, Conservation, Education, Environmental education saving endangered primates, Monkeys, Nigeria, Orphaned baby monkeys, Saving endangered monkeys | Date: Oct 05 2009 | By: cercopan

Usually a trip to Agoi is an anticipated event, often for an exciting occasion when the local community are even more cheerful than usual and their specially brewed, extra ‘hot’ spirit is more readily available.  This trip however, was quite different from those usually encountered.

We had received information that a drill monkey was being kept as a pet within the village.  Our first response was to inform Pandrillus, another primate organisation based in Calabar who specialise in drill monkey and chimpanzee rehabilitation.  Due to their current schedule and as Agoi is so close to our forest site, they asked us if we could go and remove the animal from the situation.  CERCOPAN will never buy an animal, as it encourages people to try to catch them for financial gain, and we try to avoid getting the police involved as it deters people getting in touch to donate animals already in their possession.  In these cases we try to negotiate with the owners and hope to persuade them to give up their animal, making them understand why it’s better for the individual and for them.

Rescued Juvenile Drill monkey     

When we first sent our CERCOPAN representative to see the owner we found it very hard to get our message across.  The owner, did not want to give up the animal.  He said he had paid 4000 naira for the monkey, now a juvenile male named Chris, from a hunter back in January of this year.  He had been caring for it since then and it had been living in a small wooden box constructed from wooden planks at the side of his house.  The box only had some small holes to see out of and soon he would grow far too big for the box, as adult male drills grow to a huge size.

Adult male Drill Monkey

When our first approach was not working, we attempted to negotiate with someone who had the power to sway the owner’s opinion; the local chief of the village.  The chiefs of a village often have the final say in many decisions and solve many disputes involving village residents.  After consulting the chief he spoke to the owner and began to change the owner’s position on the situation.  To begin with the owner still wanted a reward in the form of guaranteed employment.  Again we had to explain that if we agreed to such terms we would continually have this problem in future situations, and inadvertently increase the number of primates removed from the forest when others decided to use them as a means of getting a job.

Eventually he understood our position and we reached an agreement whereby he would receive a certificate stating that he had donated the drill monkey to us.  We left to prepare a certificate and returned, again to a big discussion about the situation.  Luckily we still managed to make him see he was doing the best thing and Chris was handed over in front of a crowd of around 50 people.  In addition to his certificate we presented him with information leaflets about why it is wrong to hunt monkeys and a poster urging people to protect the highly endangered drill monkey.

To make the entire event official, various traditions had to be adhered to.  After the exchange of monkey and certificate, further exchanges had to be made involving kai-kai; the locally brewed spirit that happens to be particularly strong in Agoi.  This isn’t the kind of exchange where each party buys a bottle and the other takes it home to drink leisurely in their own time - this is when both parties buy a bottle and both bottles must be finished by the end of the gathering.  A little speech was made by both sides and then each departed, swaying slightly from side-to-side!

Chris was brought to our Calabar site late the next evening where he remained in our quarantine area overnight and where he had more space than he had been used to before.  He seemed to enjoy it so much that, by the next day, he was so eager to run around more he managed to escape our trained staff and cause havoc around the office.  After destroying several office items, chewing keys off computer keyboards and peeing on important papers, we finally managed to calm him down and return him to a travel box.  After that he was taken to Pandrillus and reunited with those of his kind.  Now he is busy making new friends and learning what it is really like to be a drill monkey!

Tags: African Wildlife, Cercopan, Community Conservation, Drill monkey, Endangered primates, Nigeria, rehabilitation

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Category: CERCOPAN battles illegal loggers, CERCOPAN helping communities in Nigeria, CERCOPAN staff fighting to save rainforest and endanger, CERCOPAN supporters saving rainforests and orphaned mon, Cercopan, Communities, Conservation, Education, Environmental education saving endangered primates, Monkeys, Nigeria, Orphaned baby monkeys, Rain Forests, Saving endangered monkeys | Date: Oct 01 2009 | By: cercopan

 The October edition of the CERCOPAN monthly newsletter can be dowloaded from the link below

cerconews-october-2009-edition.pdf

Hope you enjoy it! Look out for the next issue on the 5th November.

Tags: African Wildlife, Cercopan, Community Conservation, Conservation, Endangered monkeys, environmental education, Guenons, Mangabeys, Newletter, rehabilitation

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