|
Last week in Burgers' Zoo in Arnhem, primatologist Els van Lavieren won the prestigious Future for Nature Award. Els van Lavieren worked six years for Stichting AAP. Since 2006 she has dedicated herself for the protection of the endangered barbary macaques in Marocco.
The price, an amount of 50,000 EUR, goes to her foundation, the Moroccan Primate Conservation Foundation and will be spent on the first sanctuary for barbary macaques in Marocco, that will be opened at the end of this year.
 Barbary macaques in Marocco
There are less and less barbary macaques in the Atlas Mountains in Marocco. In 2005 there were still around 4,000 in that area, but now the number has declined with thirty to forty percent.
The biggest threat for the barbary macaques is the decline of their natural habitat, the cedar woods, because of droughts, cutting down trees, and excessive pasture. Another important problem is hunting. Many European Maroccans go on holidays to Marocco in the summer, and some of them take a barbary macaque back home. Hunting as well as selling and buying are illegal, but according to Van Lavieren, the Maroccan government does too little to rectify the problem. Since 2008 the barbary macaque has had the status 'endangered' on the Red List of Endangered Species.
 The Future for Nature Awards are an initiative of nature conservancy organization IUCN and Burgers' Zoo and are awarded every year to three young and ambitious nature protectors. The winners, among whom primatologist Els van Lavieren, are selected from more than a hundred applications from around fifty countries. The price consists of an amount of 50,000 EUR.
|
