At the end of October we ventured into the world of theatre to raise awareness of the growing palm oil industry and how it’s affecting wildlife around the world. This piece of experimental theatre is part of our wider Palm Oil Challenge and aims to inform and inspire – showing people the impact palm oil is having on the environment and what we can do about it as consumers.

The Plantation Game. Photo credit: Museum of Science and industry, Sebastian Matthes-Mannox 

The interactive game was created by award-winning makers of theatre, Coney, and was performed at The Lowry as part of the Manchester Science Festival and then at the zoo. Each table represented an oil palm plantation – they had to generate enough income to keep their workers happy, keep an eye on what their competitors were up to (the other tables) and decide which route to take when dealt a new business opportunity. It was great to see the different choices made by the audience and the consequences they faced as a result!

Photo credit: Museum of Science and industry, Sebastian Matthes-Mannox

Owen Chamberlain, from the University of Chester’s RECAP (Research into Education, Creativity and Arts through Practice) centre took part in the event here at the zoo and he kindly took the time to share his feedback of the adventure game.

“It was with some intrigue that I found myself at Chester Zoo on a Saturday night to take part in what had been described to me as a murder mystery, with the main suspect being a plant. Palm oil, as I was soon to find out, is not only in everything (including toothpaste apparently), but is also increasingly being grown everywhere. Not coming from an environmental standpoint, but having a minor eco-conscience (recycling is about my limit), I was interested to know more about what has been termed ‘Green Gold’.

“The night was based around a three course meal and in between each course came a new round to the game. Each table was assigned a country, given a selection of forest cards, and the task of making as much money as possible over the night, whilst simultaneously trying to not cut down everything.

Photo credit: Museum of Science and industry, Sebastian Matthes-Mannox

“Games like this usually bring out the worst in me, and it soon became obvious that everyone on my table was the same – we opted to cut down, bribe, use chemicals etc. We soon ended up with $20,000 (10K more than everyone else), however the clincher came at the end. I don’t want to give away too much, but we lost the game!

“And that is one of the major things to have come out of the evening for me. We are constantly told within media circles that the environment is in a losing battle with us – within our game, this was brought into a stark light. We had all the money, yet no forest, animals or soul left by the end of it.

“The event did an excellent job of lulling us into a false sense of security, acting with us to damage our tables’ environment; and then showing us that we had backed ourselves into a corner of environmental ruin of our own making.

Photo credit: Museum of Science and industry, Sebastian Matthes-Mannox

“Fundamentally, changing to sustainable palm oil production is going to take some serious business change, and it is something that we could do now if there was the will. Palm oil is not a glamorous subject, even with the inclusion of orangutans. However, it is a component in such a wide range of products, and we have to change our approach to its use.

“Kudos to Chester Zoo and Coney for showing this in an innovative, challenging and inspirational way!”

Thank you to those who attended The Green Gold Conspiracy. Don’t worry if you missed it; you can still get involved and help us make a difference by taking part in our Palm Oil Challenge. Together we can make sustainable palm oil the norm!

Chester Zoo partnered up with Scottish Wildcat Action and has supported their wildcat monitoring work in the highlands of Scotland by providing funding for camera traps. These camera traps are used to identify areas where wildcat populations are thriving or suffering.

Scottish Wildcat Action tell us a little more about their plans for this year’s survey, below:

If you would like to find out more information about the work Scottish Wildcat Action are doing or if you think you have spotted a wildcat and would like to report a sighting, please visit the Scottish Wildcat Action website.

We are really proud to have been supporting a ‘Fish Ark’ conservation project in Mexico for over 10 years! Here’s an update from Dr Omar Dominguez at the Michoacán University of Saint Nicholas of Hidalgo:

“The Fish Ark is a conservation project in Central Mexico looking at 41 species of endangered, and even extinct, ‘in the wild’ Mexican fish.  Here in Central Mexico we have a particularly high number of fish species – about 100 species in total and importantly, 70% of these are endemic. We are considered by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre to be a region of special interest for the conservation of freshwater fishes.

“However, increasingly the freshwater environments in this region are being severely altered by activities such as the introduction of exotic species and their associated parasites, pollution, water extraction, deforestation and overfishing – and these factors are all contributing to a decline in these native species.

Waste outlet into fresh water source. Photo credit: Omar Dominguez

“Our project has been looking at two fish groups in Central Mexico: the goodeines and cyprinids. The goodeinae is a subfamily composed of around 41 species that have evolved over the last 16 million years; most of the goodeinae are endemic to (or found only in) our region, some are even endemic to only a small part of the river or even a single spring! This group also has very unique reproductive characteristics and is considered one of the most at-risk groups in the world.

“The cyprinid group of Central Mexico has evolved during the last 15 million years and has a high level of evolutionary distinctiveness which makes them very interesting to the programme and to our understanding. We also work with two ambystoma species (a type of salamander), which are amphibians. These two species reproduce in the larvae stage and never have a metamorphic phase; only three of the, around, 30 species of ambystoma reproduce in this way. For these reasons, conservation of these species and restoration of these freshwater ecosystems is urgent.

“The Fish Ark Project is working to prevent extinction of these species through conservation breeding; in the longer term, the project aims to help solve the wider environmental problems in the waters where the fish live in the wild.

Just some of the tanks at the conservation breeding centre. Photo credit: Juan Miguel Artigas Azas

“We are working to give these endangered species the best chance to be re-introduced to the wild where they can thrive. Most of the species in the Fish Ark are highly endangered and some are now extinct in the wild; the project has already saved three endangered species and five more could be saved.

“We are also building soil pond facilities in order to maintain a big number of endangered species, but as the soil ponds are semi-captive we hope that this will make it easier to reintroduce the new populations to the wild when the time comes.”

This next blog is from Chester Zoo’s assistant curator of mammals, Nick Davis. He also works with our project partners Hutan; by sharing his knowledge of working with this species with the team working in the field.

You’ve been following the updates from the Chester Zoo team-but here is a short video showing you just what the Assam Haathi Project is doing and how we’re helping to keep elephants and people from harm.

We’ve already looked at how this year’s Go Orange campaign will restore orangutan habitat by planting and nurturing the trees they need to survive. Orangutans are umbrella species, large animals that require large areas of native forest to survive, so by acting to protect orangutans you will also protect many other species that share the same forest.

© M.D. Kapar –Hutan – KOCP

The forests of Borneo are home to some of the most unique and biodiverse species on the planet.  One survey found over 700 species of trees and vines in a ten hectare area.  That’s three times as many tree species as are found in the USA and Canada combined!

Borneo is also home to over 2000 species of orchid, 222 mammals, 420 birds, 100 amphibians and 394 fish.  Insects make up the greatest proportion of Borneo’s diversity; there can be as many as 1000 species in a single tree!  Even more amazing is that between 1995 and 2010 over 600 new species were discovered!  That’s 3 new species every month!

Even though the reforestation team at the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Programme (KOCP) focused on only planting 30 species of tree, this will create the right conditions for the seeds of other important tree species, which have been lying dormant in the soil, to germinate and grow.  Other plant species will also spread from remaining fragments of native forest, often carried in the dung or fur of animals such as slow loris, tarsiers, langurs, gibbons, macaques, proboscis monkeys, hornbills, clouded leopard and sun bear.

These animals exist in isolated fragments of forest and many populations are too small to survive in the long term without the type of action taken by our conservation partner KOCP.  Reforesting degraded areas will not only create new habitat and provide additional food for these species but also allow them to disperse and mingle with other populations, preventing inbreeding.

Healthy forests also prevent rivers and lakes becoming polluted with sediment and run off from plantations so even freshwater animals will benefit from planting trees!  Borneo’s waterways are home to some of the world’s largest catfish, fish that breathe air, false gharials, soft-shelled turtles, terrapins and kingfishers.

Finally, planting trees will benefit an animal you probably haven’t thought of…humans!  Local communities rely on Borneo’s forests and rivers for their survival and many native species play an important role in traditional culture.  The destruction of these habitats leaves also destroys local communities resources and leaves then with few traditional livelihood choices available.

This year’s Go Orange campaign also benefits local communities directly, by providing employment propagating, planting and caring for seedlings, and indirectly by ensuring the health of Borneo’s native ecosystems.

Find out how to plant your own tree and support the survival of Borneo’s native species!

Here at Chester Zoo we’re always looking for new tools to help us Act for Wildlife and for the past year we’ve been funding an exciting project developing innovative technologies which will help us conserve the Critically Endangered Sumatran orangutan.

We are supporting Serge Wich, Professor of Primate Biology at Liverpool John Moores University, who is working with two local NGOs, the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme and the Orangutan Information Centre, to pioneer a new method for studying orangutans.

Before we can begin effectively conserving orangutans we need to answer two questions:
1) How many are there?
2) Where are they?

With this information we can set priorities, protect important areas of habitat, target ranger patrols and plan wildlife corridors.  Unfortunately orangutans are shy, secretive creatures that tend to hide in thick forest.  This makes them rather difficult to count!

Traditionally researchers have to walk long distances through thick, often muddy, forest to find orangutans or the nests they make each night.  Serge and his team are using video cameras attached to the latest fixed-wing and quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to search for orangutan nests.  With this new technology large areas can be surveyed quickly and cheaply, leaving more of our valuable time and money free for other conservation activities!

Serge has already used his UAVs to find orangutans in reforested areas.  This is important because it tells us reforesting farmland, palm oil plantations and other degraded areas can create valuable habitat for orangutans.

Whilst the technique is still being perfected Serge is sure to find lots of fascinating applications in the future.  You’ll just have to watch this space!

Act for Wildlife and join us in the fight to protect orangutans and their forest home.