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  ENN 27 Jul 06
Jane Goodall Institute Advances First 'Geoblog' Featuring 'Chimp Soap Opera'
By Jane Goodall Institute

WASHINGTON, DC — The 100 million users of Google Earth can now zoom down into the lush canopy of trees in Gombe National Park in Tanzania and read daily updates about the lives of the park's famous chimpanzees.

It is a new kind of wildlife media: stories and photos capturing the daily drama of chimpanzee life, appearing five days a week on the web. Fans say the entries are like a soap opera about wild chimpanzees.

And it is an innovative kind of blog: a Google Earth "geoblog," or weblog that uses Google's Earth's gorgeous spinning globe as its backdrop. When you click on a blog entry, the globe image spins to eastern Africa and then slowly hones in on the 35-square kilometer Gombe National Park, represented by high resolution satellite images.

The Jane Goodall Institute was the first to create a Google geoblog. "I've been to Gombe and this weblog is the next best thing to being there. Gombe is a special place to Jane and the staff of JGI, and we are delighted we can share it 'close-up' with the world at large thanks to Google Earth and our conservation scientists," said Bill Johnston, JGI president.

JGI launched the Gombe Chimpanzee Blog in January 2006 with daily updates from field researcher Emily Wroblewski, who is studying paternity among the chimpanzees. Her entries give us a glimpse of the delights and rigors of chimpanzee field research and an ongoing view of the research program begun by Jane Goodall in 1960.

Emily is trying to determine if paternal relatives treat each other in special ways, favoring each other, for example, through grooming or sharing of meat.

Last week, Google Earth laid down new 61-centimeter high-resolution satellite images of Gombe National Park. Previously the images of Gombe were low resolution (15 meters). Viewers could only zoom in so far before the image would blur. The high-resolution images were provided to Google Earth by DigitalGlobe, Inc., of Longmont, Colo.

The next step in the evolution of this blog will be to lay down markers and daily blog entries using the actual GPS coordinates provided by field staff. If Emily writes about observing chimpanzees resting on Jane's Peak, Google's pictorial Earth will spin right to Jane's Peak.

"The Jane Goodall Institute is the first entity to dedicate its content to the Google Earth format," said John Hanke, director, Google Earth and Maps. "The marriage of really compelling stories and images with Google Earth tools bring us that much closer to the chimpanzees of Gombe, and, more importantly, can help the Institute achieve its critical conservation goals. We couldn't be happier to support JGI as it works to save chimpanzees in Gombe and throughout Africa."

The new imagery clearly depicts the extent of deforestation in the Gombe region - lush and green inside the park boundaries and desert-like outside.

In fact, despite research and preservation efforts at Gombe, the habitat around the park is disappearing at an alarming rate. What was once a vast, flourishing forest with 120 to 140 chimps is now home to some 90 chimpanzees.

The deforestation is a critical problem for Gombe chimps who have seen feeding range outside the park shrink. Those feeding areas are critical for long-term survival of Gombe chimpanzees.

"This imagery is a powerful tool to help us visualize the spatial relationships between the forest and human land uses," said JGI director of conservation science Lilian Pintea. "You can clearly see houses, paths, oil palm plantations, cassava fields and other agricultural activity. Looking at these images, we gain a true appreciation for the degree of threat and challenges we face in saving Gombe."

The Jane Goodall Institute is taking bold steps, with help from supporters including the Annenberg Foundation, USAID and ESRI, the world leader in GIS (geographic information system) mapping software and technology.

An integral part of the "Greater Gombe Ecosystem Program" launched in 2005 involves working with local communities to clarify land tenure and develop village land use plans that will establish a network of village protected forest reserves outside the park.

Check out the blog: www.janegoodall.org

About JGI - Founded in 1977, the Jane Goodall Institute continues Dr. Goodall's pioneering research into chimpanzee behavior - research that transformed scientific perceptions of the relationship between humans and animals. Today, the Institute is widely recognized for establishing innovative community-centered conservation and development programs (TACARE) in Africa and the Roots & Shoots education program, which has groups in more than 95 countries.
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