Deforestation threat to chimps

SIERRA LEONE: PRIMATES, HUMANS FACE DANGER

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Esther and Rio, two orphaned baby chimpanzees, clung tenderly to their caregiver's chest at a sanctuary inside one of Sierra Leone's flagship national parks, where unprecedented deforestation and illegal urban encroachment pose a risk to both primates and humans.

The young apes, who arrived at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary when they were just three months old, listened with wide eyes as other chimps screeched and played nearby.

The park's dense vegetation, stifling heat and the metallic fever pitch of reverberating insects served as a backdrop for the country's spectacular biodiversity, which includes several protected species.

While the sanctuary rehabilitates orphaned Western chimpanzees, it is also a leading site for wildlife research and conservation education programmes. It is popular with tourists - but its keepers have defiantly kept it closed since late last month.

The protest is meant to spur the government into action over the rapid environmental degradation taking place in the national park where it is located.