The Great Ape Trust’s mission makes conservation of great apes a priority, with special emphasis on in situ conservation (conservation in the wild). Our conservation strategy builds on long-term collaborative efforts and professional relationships of Great Ape Trust senior scientists in primate range countries.

Types of Supported Activities

There are three general classes of activities that we fund.

Conservation Action: Activities that directly increase the probability of survival of habitat and the primates that live there, with sustainable co-existence with people that live there. Some common examples are salaries and equipment for rangers/guards who discover and eliminate illegal activities, reforestation programs, and community education programs.

Alternative Economies and Cultural Assistance: Programs that provide respectful sustainable economic livelihoods to people living in or near primate habitats as alternatives to extractive activities that threaten habitat and species. Some examples include tree farming (for reforestation, construction material, and fruit), goat and chicken farming, bee-keeping, crafts micro-industries, and ecotourism as alternatives to hunting, tree-cutting, and surface mining. Cultural assistance may include building and funding schools and medical clinics, and supporting higher education for people living in these places.

Conservation-Useful Science: Basic research activities conducted to increase our scientific knowledge of the primate biology and ecology, and of the sociology and culture of the people who share nonhuman primate environments. The primary goal of the scientists conducting this research is to publish findings in the scientific literature and to train graduate students, but the research can be used to plan conservation action programs. Examples include estimation of the abundance and distribution of bonobos, cataloguing the fruit trees eaten by orangutans, and studying the methods of people to collect and use firewood.

We prefer to fund an entire activity from start to finish (e.g. a one-year survey of plant foods eaten by a population of orangutans), or to provide annual support for an ongoing activity (e.g. 12 months salaries for rangers). We prefer not to provide seed money to start a project whose completion will depend on subsequent support from Great Ape Trust or others (e.g. purchasing seedlings to start an agroforestry nursery), or to invisibly co-mingle funds with other contributors to fund a larger-scale project (e.g. contribute to a large fund to establish a new reserve). We ordinarily do not contribute more than nominally to organizational maintenance (e.g. renovating offices) or administrative costs (e.g. telephone bills). In simple terms, we fund research and conservation activities with which Great Ape Trust can be distinctively identified, and which we can visit, see, touch and photograph. Our funded activity will ideally be part of a larger collaborative effort, but we want our signature on a discrete piece.

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