CHINA, Hainan Island - November 2003
Protection of the highly endangered Hainan Gibbon in exchange for scholarships for the children of four villages
Photos from 2005 Seacology Trip
One of the world's most endangered primates is the Hainan Gibbon, with only 19 individuals remaining, all living in Bawangling Reserve on Hainan Island off the south coast of China. The four villages close to the reserve are populated by poor Miao and Li minority tribes people, who have been cutting down trees in the reserve. The villages contain 200 children ages 8 to 13 whose families cannot afford to send them to primary school. Seacology, working with both the Zoological Society of Shanghai and the Zoological Society of Paris, will underwrite the costs of scholarships for all 200 primary school age children in the four villages adjacent to the reserve in exchange for the villagers' agreement to forego non-sustainable exploitation of the reserve. Instead, they will pursue alternatives such as bee farming, production of handicrafts, growing medicinal herbs, etc.*
UPDATE July 2004 - Representatives from Shanghai Zoological Society (SZS) met with village residents to design agreement forms and discuss how the scholarships will be distributed. A SZS representative will be in Hainan from May to September 2004 to help the Hainan Province Education Center of Ecology and Environment manage the first year's set of the scholarships and review the progress of the protection of the Bawangling Hainan Gibbon reserve.
UPDATE January 2005 - Approximately 200 families have signed the conservation agreement. A Seacology expedition will visit Hainan in April 2005.
UPDATE July 2005 - A Seacology expedition visited this project in April 2005. 250 families have signed the agreement and are receiving scholarships for their children. There is now an unprecedented level of cooperation between the local villagers and the park rangers. For the first time ever villagers have been turning in poachers to the park rangers.
UPDATE January 2007 - A total of 719 scholarships were awarded between September 2004 and December 2005 to elementary and middle school children in exchange for families’ agreements to protect the Bawangling National Natural Reserve and the Hainan Gibbon. Environmental education was provided by Hainan Province Education Centre of Ecology and Environment (HECEE) as part of the program. As of April 2006, village conservation awareness continued to improve with villagers starting to report poaching activities to rangers and communicating their continued support for the project. As of August 2006, positive relationships between villagers and Natural Reserve staff continue and HECEE staff members started attending village conferences and coordinating environmental education programs at the schools. As of December 2006 the Chinese government decided to abolish tuition fees for children in rural areas in an attempt to narrow the gap between wealthy provinces and poorer regions.
*Support for asterisked projects is provided fully or in part by: 
