Chimps live in a “fission-fusion” society, breaking into smaller temporary subgroups (fission) during the day. Challenges to the dominant male are common and the group leader typically changes every 3 to 5 years. Chimps, like humans, communicate using a wide variety of facial expressions, gestures, and vocalizations.Ĭhimps live and travel in troops of 30-80 individuals led by a dominant male. Others split the ends of sticks to increase the catch of insects per dip. Different troops pass along different tool-making techniques. Tool use is not instinctive, but rather learned through observation. Tools are primarily used to obtain food, but they are also used as weapons and in games such as tug of war or catch. Among the many demonstrations of their intelligence, they create tools, using rocks to smash open nuts and gourds sticks to fish ants, bees, and termites out of their nests tree branches as weapons and leaves to soak up water to drink. The project has also been developed without the adequate consultation or free prior and informed consent of residents, many of whom oppose the project and risk the loss of their customary land and livelihoods.Chimpanzees are our closest relatives, sharing 98.6 percent of our DNA. The plantation has been operating illegally and linked to corrupt practices and many Cameroonian and international groups are calling for the cancellation of the project. The Herakles Farms project in the South West region has been beset with controversy since it was first announced in 2009. "They also show that prior studies presented by the company were inadequate and failed to confirm the presence of threatened mammal species." "The results of our survey show that the proposed concession area is of high conservation value, while some parts could even act as a chimp sanctuary," said Dr Kadiri Serge Bobo of Dschang University, Cameroon. The drill is one of Africa’s most endangered primates and eighty percent of the world’s remaining drill habitat is in a relatively small forested part of Cameroon. The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as endangered with scientists estimating as few as 3,500 surviving in the wild. The forested area is located within the Guinean forests of West Africa, an area known as a biodiversity hotspot. The project zone is bordered by four protected areas including the iconic Korup national park and acts as a vital corridor for animals. Recent field research by Greenpeace in the proposed plantation zone also found evidence of chimpanzee nests. "It is therefore both ironic and tragic that an American company is set to destroy a forest area that is vital for the survival of these chimpanzees." "The US government has invested heavily in recent years in the conservation of the 'elliot’s chimpanzee'," said Filip Verbelen, forests campaigner with Greenpeace International. The study found the area to be home to not only the chimpanzee, but also the forest elephant, rare primates such as the endangered drill and the critically endangered Preuss’s red colobus monkey, plus a number of fish species, many endemic to the region. But a new study by Dschang University, in collaboration with the University of Göttingen and supported by Greenpeace International, SAVE Wildlife and WWF Germany has found that claim to be a severe misrepresentation. Herakles Farms has previously claimed its project in the South West Region of the country would convert an area of little conservation value.
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