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

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 mission is “…to promote, in close co-operation with other organisations and local communities, the conservation, preservation and protection of primates, in particular the Angolan Colobus Monkey and its associated coastal forest habitat in Kenya.”

The education team was surprised by how small the sanctuary was compared to the amount of work they do for monkeys.  They rescue a number of animals, such as dogs, as they believe if they can help an animal they should.

Currently The Trust aren’t looking after any Colobus, though there are some groups living in the surrounding area.  The Trust looks after them by building ladder bridges above the roads to reduce traffic fatalities, which they call ‘Colobridges’.

The Colobus Trust works closely with the local community to help protect animals.
That morning they had a call from a local person informing them of a Colobus that had been electrocuted on power cables.  Unfortunately the Colobus was dead, they brought it back with them, however it was for burial. The Trust also has an information centre to educate the general public.

The Colobus Trust has a very successful educational outreach program that works with local schools to teach them about conservation and reforestation.  A school visits The Trust every Tuesday, they plant trees and walk on a nature trail to learn more about the surrounding habitat.  The trail leads into a Coral Rag Forest, which would have once been underwater.  These forests are very rare as coral is spread all over the area, it is one of four such forests in Africa.

The school visits have been so successful that the children have returned with their parents to report injured animals and monkeys that are being kept as pets.
The Trust also goes into schools and plants trees for them to look after, meaning they gain a understanding of how to look after trees and why they are important.

The Colobus Trust are passionate about primates, they work together with other organisations to share knowledge inorder to improve the rehabilitation of monkeys so they can be released back into the wild.