There are no plans to run expeditions to South Africa in 2010. This is to ensure that we can monitor and analysis the effectiveness of the content produced for primate sanctuaries and organisations on our previous two expeditions. New expedition dates to South Africa will be released in 2011.
Overview of the 2009 expedition to South Africa:
The South African Handshake started in Johannesburg. From here we traveled north towards the Limpopo Province where we continued our work with the Vervet Monkey Foundation, local schools and C.A.R.E – a well-known baboon sanctuary near Phalaborwa.
After spending a week supporting primate organisations in the Limpopo Province, the Handshake headed east, towards Kruger National Park. The aim of visiting the park was to look at ways of reducing the conflict between visitors and primates at the park’s picnic spots – a problem 2008 Handshake volunteers identified as a priority to investigate during the next expedition (2009). From Kruger National Park, the Handshake traveled south towards Nelspruit to spend time at The Jane Goodall Institute’s (JGI) Chimpanzee Eden, recently featured on Animal Planet. Here, we supported educational projects and produced web-based footage to help raise awareness of the work they carry out, and the chimpanzees they care for. Volunteers were privileged to spend some time with these incredible great apes during the expedition.
From Johannesburg, the team continued to Cape Town. With stunning scenery along the way, there was plenty of time for absorbing the sights and sounds of South Africa before making base on the outskirts of the cosmopolitan city. During the expedition’s stay in Cape Town, the Handshake assisted local organisations and conservationists visited in 2008, as well as interviewing local baboon organisations on the Cape, desperately trying to resolve the human/baboon conflict.
As the baboons’ last fragments of land disappear, the Handshake team will be working to do what they can to try and raise the creatures’ profile, find workable solutions and stop them disappearing from the Cape altogether in our future expeditions to South Africa.
View our blogs from the 2009 Expedition to South Africa
