17 februari 2012
10 februari 2012
Run Free
27 januari 2012
If you are following this Blog it might be interesting to "Like" our Facebook page and follow our work there as well as there are more frequent updates on that page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Moroccan-Primate-Conservation/169428179781595
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Moroccan-Primate-Conservation/169428179781595
06 januari 2012
SPANA and MPC rescue a macaque during the meeting in Azrou
During the meeting in Azrou, an ex owner of a female Barbary macaque wanted to return a wild caught, captive held female macaque into the "tourist group" in Parc National d'Ifrane. Research assistants from the University of Lincoln managed to prevent this poor macaque from being hurt by this wild group and SPANA and MPC rescued their first Barbary macaque together in Morocco. For more information please visit our website:
http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/berber/Lisa%20-%20A%20lucky%20or%20unlucky%20Barbary%20macaque.pdf
http://www.novosite.nl/editor/assets/berber/Lisa%20-%20A%20lucky%20or%20unlucky%20Barbary%20macaque.pdf
23 oktober 2011
French customs seize 2 baby Barbary macaques!
On the 12th of August 2011 the French customs seized 2 baby Barbary macaques in France. They were bought in Morocco and smuggled in a cat carrier and their destination was the Netherlands. The 2 very young macaques have been taken to Zoo St Martin la Plaine in France, who have been taking many macaques from the illegal trade since 2009. MPC finds it is unacceptable that again 2 young macaques who were born in the wild now have a future in captivity. We need to keep fighting this!!
Meeting in Azrou to create a conservation strategy for the Barbary macaque in Morocco
Meeting in Azrou to create a conservation strategy for the Barbary macaque in Morocco
On 12 and 13 October, MPC and the Haut Comissariat aux Eaux et Forêts (E&F) organised a meeting to create a conservation strategy for the Barbary macaque in Morocco. We were very honored to work together with E&F on this and we feel that together we have reached a very important point for the conservation of the Barbary macaque.
One of the reasons why this meeting was also of high importance was, that E&F now feel that they have become the owner of Barbary macaque conservation in their country. Until now, many individuals and NGOs/ universities were working in Morocco on but E&F often did not know who was doing what or even did not know the people in the field.
We had around 35 participants, both international and national, who spent 1,5 days in the Ifrane National Park (PNI) headquarters creating a strategy to conserve this unique species. The participants were: SPANA, AESVT, University of Rennes/ Roehampton/ Lincoln/ Meknes/ Fes, BMCRif, Montagne des Singes, Fabrice Cuzin, IFAW, AAP, Institut Scientifique (+GEA), Ifrane National Park, Centre de Recherche Forestière, HCEFLCD and the regional and provincial departments of E&F and MPC.
We are very pleased with the participation of all these people. Everybody was very committed and their expertise was extremely valuable to come to a strategy for the conservation of the BM.
The presentations held by Nelly Ménard (Middle Atlas population), Sian Waters (Rif population), Prof Mouna (Conservation issues) and myself (illegal trade), created a basis for this meeting, with additional information about the High Atlas population (Fabrice Cusin). There was good and bad news. Sian Water’s presentation showed that the BM population in the Rif is doing much better than initially was thought to be. There are still quite a large number of BM in the wild in the north of Morocco and the conservation issues seem much less apparent in the north. This was great news of course.
Nelly Ménard’s presentation however turned out to be very shocking for all of us. Nelly spent 3 years in PNI studying the population in the Middle Atlas and her data confirm the large decline in this population. But what was even more shocking was the disappearance of all the juveniles, infants and a lot of females in one of her focal groups. Her data prove what I have been claiming for a long time: that the illegal poaching in this region is one of the main causes for the decline of this species, and that fighting this illegal trade is one of the most important short term actions that should be taken.
Fabrice Cuzin’s research has shown that also the small fragmented populations in the High Atlas are threatened by human impact and need higher protection to be able to survive in this region.
Although we did not have enough time to reach a clear conservation strategy together, we agreed on a method to proceed soon and have this action plan ready by the end of 2011. I am personally very happy with the outcome and I think we are all together convinced and ready to work hard on saving this species from declining further or even disappearing in the future. Thank you Montagne des Singes/ Affenberg Salem/ Rocamadour and Trentham Forest for funding this meeting!
MPC does need financial help to be involved in this all. If you are interested to support us in our work, please visit: www.mpcfoundation.nl and become a member or do a one off donation. We need your help! Thank you very much in advance!!
One of the reasons why this meeting was also of high importance was, that E&F now feel that they have become the owner of Barbary macaque conservation in their country. Until now, many individuals and NGOs/ universities were working in Morocco on but E&F often did not know who was doing what or even did not know the people in the field.
We had around 35 participants, both international and national, who spent 1,5 days in the Ifrane National Park (PNI) headquarters creating a strategy to conserve this unique species. The participants were: SPANA, AESVT, University of Rennes/ Roehampton/ Lincoln/ Meknes/ Fes, BMCRif, Montagne des Singes, Fabrice Cuzin, IFAW, AAP, Institut Scientifique (+GEA), Ifrane National Park, Centre de Recherche Forestière, HCEFLCD and the regional and provincial departments of E&F and MPC.
We are very pleased with the participation of all these people. Everybody was very committed and their expertise was extremely valuable to come to a strategy for the conservation of the BM.
The presentations held by Nelly Ménard (Middle Atlas population), Sian Waters (Rif population), Prof Mouna (Conservation issues) and myself (illegal trade), created a basis for this meeting, with additional information about the High Atlas population (Fabrice Cusin). There was good and bad news. Sian Water’s presentation showed that the BM population in the Rif is doing much better than initially was thought to be. There are still quite a large number of BM in the wild in the north of Morocco and the conservation issues seem much less apparent in the north. This was great news of course.
Nelly Ménard’s presentation however turned out to be very shocking for all of us. Nelly spent 3 years in PNI studying the population in the Middle Atlas and her data confirm the large decline in this population. But what was even more shocking was the disappearance of all the juveniles, infants and a lot of females in one of her focal groups. Her data prove what I have been claiming for a long time: that the illegal poaching in this region is one of the main causes for the decline of this species, and that fighting this illegal trade is one of the most important short term actions that should be taken.
Fabrice Cuzin’s research has shown that also the small fragmented populations in the High Atlas are threatened by human impact and need higher protection to be able to survive in this region.
Although we did not have enough time to reach a clear conservation strategy together, we agreed on a method to proceed soon and have this action plan ready by the end of 2011. I am personally very happy with the outcome and I think we are all together convinced and ready to work hard on saving this species from declining further or even disappearing in the future. Thank you Montagne des Singes/ Affenberg Salem/ Rocamadour and Trentham Forest for funding this meeting!
MPC does need financial help to be involved in this all. If you are interested to support us in our work, please visit: www.mpcfoundation.nl and become a member or do a one off donation. We need your help! Thank you very much in advance!!
11 september 2011
Fieldwork in Parc National d'Ifrane
Tomorrow Manon, Kris and Tomos (volunteers and research assistants) and myself will be off to Morocco to spend a month in the field conducting research on the wild Barbary macaque population in the Ifrane National Park. We will collect data on the density of the macaques, the numbers of livestock and also on the degradation and regeneration of the forest area. It will be great to be back in the field. This survey is sponsored by the Dutch Zoo Conservation Fund and is in cooperation with Institut Scientifique in Rabat.
Local team stops poaching of a young macaque!
The fossil sellers, as we call our local friends of MPC in the Ifrane National Park have yet again stopped the poaching of a young macaque last week. August is the peak of the poaching season. Sandra Molesti, a PhD student from the University of Lincoln said:
" I was at the tourist site today to work on my experiment when I heard the monkeys alarm calling and screaming. I ran there and there were two people trying to catch a baby with food and their hands (so not really professional). They have been chased away by the fossil sellers and the people who rent out horses. Apparently they are known and it was not the first time they tried on this group. People told me that they are poor people who catch a monkey on command for usually foreign buyers (e.g. French people etc). Thus apparently they are some demands now so certainly some people are trying to catch infants".
Although this is disturbing news, MPC is extremely happy to see that our local friends are working hard to fight the poachers!
" I was at the tourist site today to work on my experiment when I heard the monkeys alarm calling and screaming. I ran there and there were two people trying to catch a baby with food and their hands (so not really professional). They have been chased away by the fossil sellers and the people who rent out horses. Apparently they are known and it was not the first time they tried on this group. People told me that they are poor people who catch a monkey on command for usually foreign buyers (e.g. French people etc). Thus apparently they are some demands now so certainly some people are trying to catch infants".
Although this is disturbing news, MPC is extremely happy to see that our local friends are working hard to fight the poachers!
11 augustus 2011
Ignorant people
Lately I have noticed a something that really disturbs me a lot.
Recently we have been active at a few fundraising activities, in which we first explain what MPC stands for and then ask people if they would like to donate a small amount to our foundation or if they want to buy for example merchanidise to support us. But, and this is really shocking, we sometimes don’t even get the chance to explain what we do after we mention the word “Morocco” , because people just react directly by saying “NO” the moment they hear the word Morocco. This shocks me every time this happens….!!
A friend of mine who runs a Nail Beauty parlor in quite an upscale area in Amsterdam tried to raise some funds with her clients for MPC but the moment she mentioned the word Morocco they said no. They said that they did not want to give anything to Moroccans and that they don’t trust that their money will arrive to the place that it should. Even when she explained that it was for the monkeys, they already closed their ears and looked the other way.
I cannot believe this. I think it is appalling that people in Holland are so short sighted. It is very intriguing that people donate millions of Euro’s without thinking twice to a country like Somalia – a country that has been the most anarchistic, criminal shithole (excuse my French) place on earth run by warlords and corrupt idiots who let their people starve to death – and people donate what? 17 million now in Holland? Incredible. Really incredible….
What disturbs me the most is that people obviously have no idea about Morocco (my second home and one of the most beautiful and safest countries I have ever been), about Moroccan people (who are more warm, sharing and caring than most western people I have met in my life) and are incapable of making a difference between the small percentage of nasty Moroccan boys who are causing trouble in our country and millions of good people that we can learn from in our society!
Wow Holland, we used to be so tolerant. Now we are just ignorant!
Recently we have been active at a few fundraising activities, in which we first explain what MPC stands for and then ask people if they would like to donate a small amount to our foundation or if they want to buy for example merchanidise to support us. But, and this is really shocking, we sometimes don’t even get the chance to explain what we do after we mention the word “Morocco” , because people just react directly by saying “NO” the moment they hear the word Morocco. This shocks me every time this happens….!!
A friend of mine who runs a Nail Beauty parlor in quite an upscale area in Amsterdam tried to raise some funds with her clients for MPC but the moment she mentioned the word Morocco they said no. They said that they did not want to give anything to Moroccans and that they don’t trust that their money will arrive to the place that it should. Even when she explained that it was for the monkeys, they already closed their ears and looked the other way.
I cannot believe this. I think it is appalling that people in Holland are so short sighted. It is very intriguing that people donate millions of Euro’s without thinking twice to a country like Somalia – a country that has been the most anarchistic, criminal shithole (excuse my French) place on earth run by warlords and corrupt idiots who let their people starve to death – and people donate what? 17 million now in Holland? Incredible. Really incredible….
What disturbs me the most is that people obviously have no idea about Morocco (my second home and one of the most beautiful and safest countries I have ever been), about Moroccan people (who are more warm, sharing and caring than most western people I have met in my life) and are incapable of making a difference between the small percentage of nasty Moroccan boys who are causing trouble in our country and millions of good people that we can learn from in our society!
Wow Holland, we used to be so tolerant. Now we are just ignorant!
