You were at the shopping mall this weekend, huh? It's alright...I was, too. Are you starting to panic yet? Here...let me blot your brow. That's better...now pull yourself together. Take a deep breath and let's hatch up a strategy. As I watched a rush of bodies milling into store after store after store yesterday, there's one thing that I couldn't help but notice. Practically everyone was wearing that all too familiar, "I have no clue what I'm getting them" face, their eyes sinking in and lids drooping further down as the hours flew by. The whole process of hunting down the ultimate gift for each person on our list can be, well...an exercise in bummersville because if you rely on the "see and buy" method, chances are good that your gift will end up being heave-hoed into the landfill by the end of January.
This year, the mainstream media has been relentless about highlighting the benefits of handcrafting our own gifts for friends and loved ones that are eco & budget friendly, and green-minded people are generally happy to jump on the bandwagon. If you're chronically crunched for time however, you may never seem to find a window of opportunity to make it all come together. That's when we all end up rubbing elbows at the mall, wondering how on earth we got there when just a few brief weeks ago we had the best intentions of greening our gift giving to the nth degree.
Well, here's an unusually impactful planet-friendly gift that you can bestow one or many people on your list that they will surely remember for years to come -- enroll them in the Jane Goodall Institute's Chimp Guardian program so that orphaned chimp babies from the Democratic Republic Of Congo can be nurtured and given a fighting chance for survival. At their Democratic Republic Of Congo Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center, baby chimpanzees that have born witness to the slaying of their parents and community members are rescued from the jungle and given food, shelter, social skills, affection and the tools to ideally rebound from their experienced tragedy. The fact that a facility was created expressly for this purpose gives you an idea of just how regularly this environmental travesty is committed.
The IUCN Red List Of Threatened Species has cited the Sub-Saharan country as having a chimpanzee population ranging from 70,000 to 110,000, but due to incessant deforestation, infectious diseases like Ebola and most of all poaching, the species has endured steadily declining numbers. To comprehend why people in the region resort to obtaining illegal bushmeat from these highly intelligent creatures, it's helpful to recognize that the Congo has long been in the throes of unimaginable human tragedy, as well. From consistent political unrest, violence and chronic poverty to one of the worst cases of food insecurity in the world -- 76% of the people in the Democratic Republic Of Congo face chronic hunger on a daily basis -- sheer survival compels human beings to do some things that are very difficult to fathom.
This holiday season, instead of spending $50 on a shiny plastic manufactured gift with a brief lifespan of enjoyment and quality, consider helping to extend the lifespan of one of the 140 rescued chimps in Jane Goodall's facility instead. It will be $50 well spent and contribute to a steadily accumulating drop in the bucket that will yield a fortuitous future for chimpanzees in the Congo. If you are moved by their plight, don't forget that the illegal bushmeat trade is considered to be the leading threat to many other endangered animals such as gorillas, mandrills, and various additional smaller primates. Conduct some research and show your financial support not just now, but well beyond the new year.
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