Writing Roads's story links

The amazing Tony Fitzpatrick has written a super-wonderful article about I’m Lucy and Bonobo Kids. And while it’s popping up all over the Internet (including several Washington University publications), we thought it should certainly pop up here as well! Tony is a true Bonobo Hero - and he provides Bonobo Kids with yet another shining example of how to use your talents to help the entire world.

We were so lucky to interview wildlife adventure photographers Adam Bates and Julie Calvert of Shutterspeed Travel after they spent two weeks at Lola Ya Bonobo Sanctuary in Africa’s DRC. Lola does the amazing work of rescuing young bonobos orphaned by the hunting and habitat destruction in the Democratic Republic of Congo. About 50 bonobos - babies, adolescents and adults - live at the Sanctuary and heal, grow and play.

New satellite photographs show that the destruction of Brazil's fragile Amazon rainforest has exploded this year, fueling fears that the government's efforts to stop deforestation have been fruitless.

Brazil's DETER real-time monitoring system found that more than 430 square miles of forest, an area a bit smaller than the city of Los Angeles, vanished in the month of April, while about 2,300 square miles, larger than the state of Delaware, were destroyed between last August and April.

June 5th is World Environment Day - a day set up by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to ’stimulate worldwide awareness of the environment and enhance political attention and action.’ This year, the main celebration kicks off in Wellington, New Zealand while events and activities happen worldwide. The 2008 theme is Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy...here is a list of actions you can take to reduce your carbon footprint...

If you said ‘NO’, then you were right! They can’t actually swim, but they love to play in the water. Check out these incredible pictures from Lola Ya Bonobo by adventure photographers Julie Calvert and Adam Bates of Shutter Speed Travel.

Bonobo Kid's Book and Website Bring Environmental Action to Children and Help to Endangered Species

Jane Goodall wrote the compelling afterword to a children's story about a young bonobo named Lucy who lives in the Jacksonville Zoo.

In the Tshuapa, Lomami and Lualaba river basins in the DRC where the bonobos live, humans have it very rough – we couldn’t say if they have it better or worse than the bonobos. However, we can say that the human women have it worse than the human men in the DRC. In the United States, women are free to get jobs, go to school and live by themselves – you may think it’s strange that we’re even mentioning those things because we are so used to these freedoms!

When you go to www.bonobokids.com to play and learn and buy tons of I’m Lucy: A Day in the Life of a Young Bonobo books, you are filled with a playful, joyful feeling. Of course, seeing Lucy makes you happy, but that music, that flowing melody…what is it? who created it? WE ALL LOVE IT! The music was written and performed by a very cool guy named Alex Reiser. We interviewed him so that we could find out as much as we could about this musical genius. Here are our questions and his answers:

There are currently about 170 bonobos in zoos across the world. And, while zoos are usually great, sometimes bad things can happen at zoos. On Christmas Day, 2007, a Siberian Tiger escaped from its zoo home and attacked three people in the zoo. Which makes us wonder for the bazillionth time:

Are zoos good or are zoos bad? What do you think?

Did you know that regular old crayons (think Crayola) have petroleum in them? Petroleum is a fossil fuel – we often call it ‘oil’ and it runs cars, heats homes, etc. Is this something you want in your crayons?

An awesome blog for kids and parents aimed at helping the bonobos - our closest ape cousins who are dangerously near extinction in the DRC, Africa. This post lists and describes professions kids can strive for that will help save the bonobos and the world.