Day two in The Gambia: A long day attending the National Environment Agency coastal forum meeting.
I was kindly invited to this conference by Kemo Fatty from Green Up Gambia with many guest speakers talking about coastal issues- mostly flooding, with time for discussion.
I am not going to write about the information shared, but about the conference centre itself.
In 2018 a portion of Bijilo Monkey Forest was destroyed for The Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center to be built. This conference centre now sits on the site where monkeys use to eat and where their only water source used to be. Communities fought to protect the forest but failed- it was quite ironic that this environmental conference today was held here. There was no mention of this- no honour to the park, even in a room full of government and non governmental leaders and environmentalists. Some of the attendees today fought to protect The Monkey Forest and are still furious and heart broken.
The part of The Monkey Forest that was cut down was the main food area and so now the monkeys rely on supplemented food from visitors to make up their diets. The small pool that the monkeys relied on for water was also destroyed in the bulldozing.
When i first heard of Bijilo National Park aka The Monkey Park, i thought it was not somewhere i would like to visit. I heard the name & immediately thought that it would be tourist galore, exploiting primates. This was before i knew this story.
My visit was beautiful. I asked Kemo about the interaction with humans and what his thoughts were on this. After protesting and fighting to protect the park through his organisation; Greening Up Gambia, he explained that the good people of Gambia have had to step in and provide food and supplements for the monkeys because of the lack of food after the bulldozing. Many monkeys were leaving the forest and getting killed on roads whilst sourcing food. He said that humans are now so involved with the forest that they have become friends.
I am in awe of the work that Kemo has done on fighting for the park. Unfortunately they did not win this battle.
The conference centre was built and funded by a 50million USD Chinese investment into The Gambia.
The park is home to the Western Red Colobus Monkey, which is listed as an endangered species.