LEBANON SIGNS CITES

The rescue of chimpanzee Omega, broadcasted worldwide as long as he was a smoker and worked for years as a “waiter” in a Lebanese restaurant, opened the way to other primates find their destiny of peace and calmness.

While Omega is changing his miserable life at one of the best sanctuaries of the world, located at Paraná, Brazil, Alia Foundation, in Jordan, opens its new rescue center called “New Hope” and prepares to host a sacred baboon family – two males and five females – four of them born in the same Lebanese zoo where Omega used to live.

At the same time of this new, the Government of Lebanon was prohibiting the importation of primates and defined to it the regulation of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Speciesof Wild Fauna and Flora), which rules the circulation of animals threaded to extinction in all continents. Lebanon, which used to be a paradise for poachers, now enters at the legal world and prohibit the entrance of animals that do not follow international regulation, something that every country must apply in their territory.

NGO ANIMALS LEBANON, which has been working hardly to achieve these changes and conquests in a country that was always against to battle animal trafficking, announces these achievements to the world and asks for support for this next rescue to be made successfully.

More information: www.animalslebanon.org

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian
President, GAP Project International