A Dream for a Better World

The Kipunji monkeys were originally discovered in 2003/2004 based on a rumor of a shy and unusual monkey from villages in the southern highlands of Tanzania. Now, after 2,800 hours of fieldwork, there are only 1,117 of these monkeys, and they live in two isolated forests with a total area of just 6.82 square miles.  Several years after it was first discovered, researchers managed to get enough evidence to announce it as a new species, a year later it was further hailed as a whole new genus, the first new monkey genus in over 80 years.  Although the Kipunji has already been listed among the World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates, it hasn’t yet made it onto the World Conservation Union’s (ICUN) Red List as “critically endangered”, which is where WCS think it should be because of the threats to its habitat.

Papua New Guinea’s forests are going fast. A new satellite analysis reveals that in 2001 accessible forests in the country were being cleared or degraded by 362,000 hectares a year.  A new report on The State of the Forests of Papua New Guinea from researchers at the University of Papua New Guinea Remote Sensing Centre and the Australian National University warns that by 2021, 83% of accessible forests and 53% of total forests will be gone or badly damaged.  The unfortunate reality is that forests in Papua New Guinea are being logged repeatedly and wastefully with little regard for the environmental consequences and with at least the passive complicity of government authorities.