6:38am UK, Tuesday October 06, 2009Paul Brennan, Sky News reporter
An innovative new conservation project is harnessing the power of social networking sites to help the endangered Highland Gorilla of Uganda.
Eco-tourists already trek out into the forest to visit the apes, but advertising creative Thomas Slater Junior came up with the novel new approach.
He explained: "A lot of people can't see the gorillas so we decided to go and bring the gorillas to them.
"Media sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have so many people already, we wanted to utilise that platform.
"Out of that came 'Friend A Gorilla' - for you the individual to log on, look at all the gorillas we have in the Biwindi Forest and 'friend' one."
There are six different family groups of gorillas roaming the Biwindi Impenetrable Forest, and web users browse the site and choose which of the individual apes they want to 'friend'.
Each of the gorillas has a name and a distinct personality.
It costs you a dollar for the 'friend' you choose, but in return you get regular status updates from the forest, and via GPS tracking, you can even follow the gorillas as they move through the jungle.
Nearly 7,500 people have already signed up, and in Uganda, it is starting to change public attitudes to the conservation effort.
Patrick, a student at Makere University in Kampala, has joined.
He said: "This campaign I think can be a good idea, to educate and to sensitise all our people to conserve the environment. For Uganda and probably the world at large."
There are just 720 of these great apes left in the wild.
Their habitat, in the forests bordering Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been ravaged by war, and the animals themselves targeted by poachers.
But by personalising the individual animals, the conservationists believe that people will become more interested in gorillas in general, and help spread the message that they need to be protected.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Endangered-Gorillas-In-Uganda-Join-Facebook-In-Innovative-Conservation-Project/Article/200910115399952?f=rss
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