We are please to announce that a new publication has just been posted
on the PSG website:

Best Practice Guidelines for Great Ape Tourism

Elizabeth J. Macfie and Elizabeth A. Williamson

with contributions from Marc Ancrenaz, Chloe Cipolletta, Debby Cox,
Christina Ellis, David Greer, Chloe Hodgkinson, Anne Russon and Ian
Singleton

The PDF can be downloaded via the following link:

http://www.primate-sg.org/BP.tourism.htm

We hope to have printed copies available at the IPS Congress next
month. Translation into French and Bahasa Indonesia is underway.

We are very grateful to the Arcus Foundation and the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service for supporting the production of this document.

02/09/2010
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www.conservationtraining.org
<http://www.4apes.com/lists/admin/FCKeditor/editor/www.conservationtraining.org>

The Nature Conservancy; Conservation International; the Climate,
Community, and Biodiversity Alliance; Rainforest Alliance, the World
Wildlife Fund, and GTZ have updated their online introductory course
on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation and
conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) with new
information and activities.

This course provides a basic level of understanding regarding the
REDD+ concept. It begins with background information on climate change
and drivers of deforestation, then covers the essential aspects of the
technical, political, financial, social and environmental issues
related to REDD+, and finalizes with a basics on implementing REDD+
activities at a national or sub-national scale. The course is meant to
enable participants to more fully understand and better engage in
REDD+ policy negotiations at the national and international levels and
to facilitate the development of credible REDD+ activities in
developing countries through basic capacity building.

The course is free and publicly available at:

www.conservationtraining.org
<http://www.4apes.com/lists/admin/FCKeditor/editor/www.conservationtraining.org>

02/09/2010
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I am delighted to announce that both the English and French versions
of the Atlas are now available online. This has been made possible
through a collaboration with the Biodiversity Heritage Library. We
have permission from joint copyright holders to place this material
online.

For the English version:

http://www.archive.org/details/worldatlasofgrea05cald

For the French version (with updated maps):

http://www.archive.org/details/worldatlasofgrea05jcal

BHL conducts high-resolution scanning of documents for the purposes of
long-term preservation, as well as increasing access and allowing
searching within the documents. Around 400 UNEP-WCMC publications will
be made available in due course on http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

02/09/2010
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By Wolfgang H. Thome, eTN | Aug 26, 2010
(eTN) - The Ruhengeri/Musanze area of Rwanda is best known around the
world for being the access point for tracking the famous mountain
gorillas living up by the volcanic mountains, which form the
ever-present background against the horizon.

Over the past 5 years alone, the number of tourist-quality hotels and
safari establishments has more than doubled, providing added job
opportunities while a large number of cooperatives have sprung up,
which provide local crafts and curios to the hotels, lodges, markets,
and shops where foreign tourists can then purchase genuine items
produced in the area. Porter services, operating in form of
cooperatives, have also allowed people to earn a living every day by
carrying the backpacks, water bottles, and camera cases for tourist
visitors tracking the gorillas or taking hikes up and around the
mountains, a service incidentally highly recommended, not just to
spread some income into the communities but also to ease ones' own
burden of carrying something, which originally weighs two or three
pounds but in the end feels like the proverbial ton.

http://www.eturbonews.com/18120/gorilla-tourism-shows-results-rwanda-local-economy

25/08/2010
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*PRESS RELEASE*

Countries take first steps to implement their partnership to combat
deforestation

Jakarta, August 19, 2010

The government of Norway has agreed to transfer an initial
contribution of USD 30 million through an international financing
mechanism to finance Phase I of the Indonesia-Norway partnership on
REDD+ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation)
in Indonesia. The two sides signed a Letter of Intent in Oslo in May
of this year outlining the framework for a USD 1 billion partnership
to combat deforestation and forest degradation.

19/08/2010
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The Born Free Foundation's Founder Virginia McKenna OBE has been
nominated for the ‘Alternative Rich List', and made it to the
final Top 10 shortlist.

*Please vote for Virginia, and let's make her No.1 !*

15/08/2010
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