The Great Primate Handshake – Volunteer in Africa, working to conserve monkeys and apes through film and educational content production

Close Encounters: The Benefits and Costs.

Written by Lucy Radford

8. October 2010

At first glance, eco-tourism initiatives that allow people to get close to endangered species seem like a brilliant way of dealing with several of conservation’s significant problems; raising awareness and increasing people’s passion for conservation, boosting local economies, and bringing money in to help pay to conserve not only the species in question, but others [...]

Differences in attitudes towards animal welfare between the west and areas of poverty

Written by Phil Singh

1. October 2010

1 Comment

Attitudes differ on many subjects from one country to another. These can be trivial issues such as the best way to prepare food to important issues such as human and animal welfare. When many western such as the handshake volunteers tour countries abroad, they can be horrified by the way some animals are treated. The [...]

Debate: Biofuel pros and cons

Written by Anna Hartwell Douglas

24. September 2010

2 Comments

Biofuels are said to be the answer to using the great quantities of fossil fuels we are using today. Fossil fuels are fast running out and these fuels like bioethanol and biodeisel are said to help reduce our reliance on such depleting resources. Another positive from the biofuels are that they are said to produce [...]

Why are people more likely to conserve species we identify with ?

Written by Phil Singh

17. September 2010

1 Comment

Why are people more likely to conserve species we identify with? Primate conservation is a prominent aspect of conservation. They share much of our ancestry and for this reason some people feel obliged to try increase their numbers. Are other species overlooked due to their inhuman like characteristics or behaviour? It is understood by scientists that [...]

Would employing more community members in conservation increase its popularity ?

Written by Phil Singh

3. September 2010

2 Comments

Would employing more community members in conservation increase its popularity? All major areas of biodiversity are full of westerners that have made the choice to move to find employment within conservation. Although this is good for conservation, it takes away jobs from locals. Many communities are unsympathetic towards conservation as they feel they are excluded. [...]

Last Stop: Colobus Trust, Diani Beach!

Written by Lauren Gribble

1. September 2010

2 Comments

Today, the Great Primate Handshake visited The Colobus Trust in the heart of Diani Beach. This non-profit organization was founded in 1997 and works to rescue and rehabilitate the area’s threatened primates. Primates such asthe Angolan colobus monkey, vervet monkeys, Sykes monkeys, bush babies and yellow baboons have all found aid from the Colobus Trust. When [...]

Reforesting Bore: A Resident’s Perspective

Written by Lucy Radford

31. August 2010

2 Comments

Jeremiah Muramba is a resident of Bore, making his living from small-scale farming and devoting his spare time to helping with efforts to reforest the area. As he puts it, his role is to make sure the existing forest and newly-planted saplings cannot be destroyed, either wilfully or accidentally. One of the main ways in [...]

Conservation, Preservation and Protection of Primates

Written by Kerry Ewer

31. August 2010

1 Comment

Today the education team visited The Colobus Trust. The Colobus Trust was first set up to in 1997 as a non-profit organisation to protect, as the name suggests, the Colobus Monkeys. However, they soon realised there were a number of other monkeys in the area that where facing similar problems. The trusts [...]

Who’s Encroaching On Whom?

Written by Lucy Radford

27. August 2010

3 Comments

An article on the BBC News website on 25th August 2010 had the headline “The criminal baboons terrorising South Africa”, and goes on to describe the baboons of the Cape Peninsula as “intruders”. This got us at the Handshake thinking about the now-widespread problem of human-wildlife conflict, and the rights and wrongs of criminalising the [...]

Dinner – Kenyan style

Written by Phil Singh

25. August 2010

2 Comments

The Handshake had the privilege of having dinner within a Kenyan home on Monday night. Laurence one of the founders of the Handshake received a call from one of his old university friends, Ombaye, who invited all the 20 people involved in this tour for dinner. Ombaye Getui is a graduate of Lampeter University in [...]