I’m getting tired of kissing the BBC’s over-sized butt (I’m imagining a sort of matronly figure with a ginormous posterior and kindly smile, but you can use your own imagination) but they’ve done it again!! They’ve had Chimp Week going on BBC One and it is absolutely gorge!! Although it is slightly worrying when a local conservationist stands on the shore of the Lake Tanganyika and points out all across the other sides there’s civil unrest and streams of refugees heading towards the reserve. I read African Silence not long ago, and even back in late 70’s, people who actually worked in Africa knew the importance of enrolling the locals in conservation efforts, as well as the impossibility of saving animals without sparing a thought for the local people as well. But now they seem to be catching up, atleast ideogically.
Ape Week was talking about the probable extinction of Orangutans due to crop farming in Indonesia. Apparently jungle habitat is being cleared to make way for farmers to grow Palm Oil trees. One in every ten products on our supermarket shelves contains Palm oil, from cosmetics, to butter, ice-cream, etc. More info on this can be found on this Friends of Earth page.