Ngamba Island gets gabions after a year of flooding which caused a rise in water level by 1.8 M.

Following the flooding that this caused, immediate and short-term solutions were deployed, including the use of sandbags to manage soil erosion that was causing damage to buildings and other structures, compromising their integrity and safety.

It had been expected that the waters would recede almost immediately as they have done in the past, but instead, the flooding persisted. A more permanent solution was now urgent!

The huge cost of installing gabions (stone filled wire baskets) to form a strong and permanent physical barrier against the waves, control erosion, protect the island from more flooding and water damage, was imminent, despite the huge cost implication.

With this concern, management reached out to friends and donors for support and by the close of the year, our partnership with the Jane Goodall Institutes of Switzerland and Austria, with their donors, came, to our rescue and since then, we have been hard at work to complete the first and most crucial phase of our “Gabion Installation Project”.

This project has involved a lot of physical labor to mine rock from the nearby islands, transport it to Ngamba Island and erect the gabion wall. We expect to complete this within 8-10 weeks from the first week of January and are already 50% done to date.

This project will help us ensure the survival of the sanctuary and hence the capacity of the island to provide a home for the long-term care of the chimpanzees. The sanctuary will need more support to continue with the 2nd phase of the gabion construction in March 2021.