Thank you all so much for your amazing support for the Bulindi Chimpanzee & Community Project in the EOCA European Outdoor Conservation Association public vote. We are SO proud to annouce that with your your help, votes and shares, our project received most votes in the Forest Category and will be funded!!! This award will enable us to extend our reach to cover new areas and increase our impact on the ground significantly.

Watch this space for regular updates (beginning January 2018 when the new project starts) about our activities and the impact these have for local people, the environment, and of course the chimpanzees.

THANK YOU & PANT HOOTS TO YOU ALL!!!!!

Today, 15th October, highlights the importance of rural women in their fight and struggles to overcome the conditions of poverty in village life. Sadly, in many rural areas it's women and girls who suffer the most from multi-dimensional poverty.

Please meet Lilian. She owns a parcel of natural forest on her land which is used daily by the Bulindi chimpanzees, and which our project helps to conserve and reforest. And she has planted a woodlot outside the forest to meet her family's future fuel and wood needs. Our project has helped her with housebuilding; she now has a permanent house made with bricks and finished with iron sheet roofing. She is a teacher at a local primary school and is the secretary of the local Friends of Nature committee. 50% of the Friends of Nature committee in Bulindi, who work with us to conserve local forests, are women. Project activities including the construction of three village boreholes with the help of BridgIt Water Foundation and Suubi Community Projects-Uganda are making a big difference to the lives of women, like Lilian, and children, who are normally the collectors of water. 

We are committed to help the villagers who live alongside chimpanzees in difficult circumstances, and give them alternatives to relying on forest produce and deforestation to make ends meet.

To support our project - please vote for our Habitat Restoration and Ecotourism for Chimpanzees project (we are the third project down) - bit.ly/VoteForBulindiChimps
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PLEASE VOTE TO SUPPORT CHIMP CONSERVATION
please visit bit.ly/VoteForBulindiChimps (we are the third project down)

300 or more wild chimpanzees cling to survival on village land in Uganda's Hoima District (https://bmcecol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12898-015-0052-x).
Most conservation efforts understandably focus on great apes inside government-managed protected areas. But who speaks for the unlucky 300 Hoima chimpanzees living outside such areas?

The Bulindi Chimpanzee & Community Project is a small grassroots organzation. We're devoted exclusively to finding effective solutions to conserve Hoima's chimpanzees and improve lives of people living alongside them.
We're shortlisted for a grant from EOCA European Outdoor Conservation Association​. If successful, this award will provide much needed funds to support our work on the ground. Please vote for us here: bit.ly/VoteForBulindiChimps (we are the third down).

Thank you.

Some of you may have seen on social media that an adult male chimp was knocked and killed by a car yesterday evening in Hoima, Uganda. This male was from the Wagaisa chimpanzee community, 10 km from Bulindi. Earlier this year the Bulindi Chimpanzee & Community Project expanded our activities to cover the areas of three more chimp groups, including the Wagaisa chimps. We didn't yet know this prime young male, but his loss is a massive blow to this chimpanzee community, under unimaginable pressure having lost virtually all their natural habitat. The images of the dead male are too grisly to post, and the accident understandably generated a lot of tension and excitement in the local village. We have a lot of work to do to conserve Hoima's imperilled chimpanzees living alongside a growing human population. But we are highly committed to finding effective solutions.
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Sadly this is not the first time a chimp has died trying to cross ever busier roads here. In 2015, Olive (pictured here) -- a wonderful mother from the Bulindi community -- was killed along with her infant in similar circumstances. Roads in Hoima are right now being widened and upgraded to tarmack, allowing vehicles to travel faster and faster. Inevitably, more chimps will die. The Bulindi Chimpanzee & Community Project, along with other concerned groups (including Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Budongo Conservation Field Station) are working to find a solution with the road authorities. We'll keep you updated.

To help us conserve chimpanzees in Wagaisa, Bulindi and two other sites where we work in Hoima, please vote for our project http://bit.ly/VoteForBulindiChimps.

If successful, this award will provide us much needed funds to support our work on the ground. Thank you.
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