West Africa’s largest chimpanzee refuge has remained closed to tourists for more than two months. The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, nestled in Sierra Leone’s Western Area Peninsula National Park, halted all tourism operations after founder Bala Amarasekaran began a protest against unchecked forest loss encroaching on vital wildlife habitat. “There’s nothing else—land grabbing, period,” Amarasekaran told Reuters, pointing to illegal logging and unregulated development as direct threats to the sanctuary’s more than 100 resident chimpanzees. Forest Fragmentation Accelerates Sierra Leone has lost 2.17 million hectares of tree cover since 2001—representing 39% of its forest canopy—according to Global Forest Watch data. The … Continue reading Tacugama Sanctuary Closes: Sierra Leone Loses 39% of Forests as Founder Protests ‘Land Grabbing’ Near Chimps