Great Ape Diaries

Posted by admin on May 24, 2013

Diary #69 – When To Pull The Plug: Predicting Great Ape Extinction

“To date, conservation efforts have failed the great apes. Year after year, conferences and seminars celebrate a “renewed” engagement to save the great apes, which leaves the participants, as well as the public, with a feel-good sense of optimism. Then, year after year, we are surprised that conservation efforts barely affect the race towards extinction.” - Ofir Drori, Founder, Last Great...

Posted by admin on May 21, 2013

Diary #68 – “You don’t choose what to write–it chooses you”

Story telling and writing are not the same thing. Then again they are. I struggled in high school writing classes, often my papers being returned to me with more of Ms. Collins red ink than my original black ink. She once held my paper until the end of class, as others filed out, she handed me my fruitfully edited manuscript and said, “my apologies for the stains, but a glass of red wine is the only...

Posted by admin on May 8, 2013

Diary #67 – First, Facing Glaring Symptoms

Portland, Oregon - Why post about DRCongo war crimes here and in our social media such as Facebook page?? Because despite all the conservation babble about needing your support ($$), NGO rhetoric regarding progress, and grand messages of hope, the foundational issue facing great apes in ever wild location in the world is security & corruption, they are part and parcel, and unless this fundamental...

Posted by admin on May 7, 2013

Diary #66 – Summits For Hope, We Just Never Reach High Enough

Portland, Oregon - In middle of waiting for a download to DVD of images of our planet – images of hope – to complete for an Environmental Summit with the Dali Lama – I started thumbing through images of the past few months, people and places struggling with hope. Hope – such a lovely word when we have enough to eat, fresh water, can at least look for a job if we don’t have...

Posted by admin on Mar 13, 2013

Diary #59 – Is Denial A Reality To Which We Are Hardwired?

Portland, Oregon USA - As the experience of what I witnessed in DRCongo versus the experience on the Rwanda side of the Virungas continues to tumble over and over in my head, especially since I am pouring through the photos and video editing, I keep trying to anchor myself, grab on to what I saw and heard in an attempt to halt the tumbling. Yet every time I’m close I look around me and see a...

Posted by admin on Mar 11, 2013

Diary #65 – CITES Solution: Extinction

Portland, OR - Last week I flew over Bangkok on my way back to the states. Waiting in the old disgrace of an international terminal in Kolkata I was tempted for a few milliseconds to fly to Bangkok and attend the CITES Conference instead of straight home. Talk was swirling that real action regarding multiple species extinctions was going to surface. But my millisecond passed and so too will the concern and...

Posted by admin on Mar 5, 2013

Diary #64 – Are the great apes about to disappear?

Portland, OR - “More than 22,000 great apes are estimated to have been lost to the illicit trade between 2005 and 2011, according to the study by the UN Environment Program, which oversees the Great Apes Survival Partnership (Grasp). “This trade is thriving and extremely dangerous to the long term survival of great apes,” said GRASP coordinator Doug Cress, describing the illegal trade as...