Bonobos make love, not war

Bonobos live in rainforests south of the Zaire river in Africa, and struggle to survive in the face of logging corporations (US, France, other G8 nations 4 export) that remove the rainforest ecosystem they need for survival. These near cousins of chimpanzees have a female centered social structure and are shown to be far less violent than their chimpanzee cousins..

What the warmonger leaders like Bush/Cheney/Sharon/Arafat could learn from the wise bonobo matriarchs, if only we could stop the intensive logging that removes bonobo habitat before their extinction..

Bonobo society discourages supreme leaders like the above tyrants, instead everyone is close to equal and the group functions as a collective. Females give social balance to the group by grooming one another, males similar. It gets kinky at times, with mutual masturbation, but please don't think of the above mentioned warmongers doing this, just imagine CNN coverage (YUCK!! sorry, i had to go there, ha ha)..

Bonobos play games, make various complex face signals, engage in dancing theatrics, all with the intent of conflict resolution. Hugs and kisses afterwards indicate restoration of harmonius relations between the two individuals..

The people of the Wamba Forest region have lived alongside the bonobo since ancient times, there was a spiritual taboo against eating bonobo meat among the local people. The modern colonial consumer influence that penetrated the Wamba in the eighties offered large sums of money to poachers who would kill and/or capture bonobos for bush meat, foreign pet trade or biomedical research. The taboo is forgotten as the people are encouraged to "modernize" and convert to a cash economy based on export of resources. Wire snares and other cruel traps are tools of corporate greed and symbolize the extinction of the peaceful bonobo tribe..

The wire snare with Br'er Rabbit's spirit is symbolic of the tangled web that holds everyone on Earth together. The Arcata library bike caught in the snare will be freed tomorrow, and the gates at California Primate Research Center hidden 2 miles from UC Davis campus will one day also open to the eyes of the public. We wonder what the secret is behind the tall iron gates on Hutchinson Rd., if the researchers are helping the primates, why the secret?

We would like to challenge the primate researchers at UC Davis and elsewhere who feel they are learning about primates living in depressed in cages far from home to instead travel to these sensitive places and help the primates survive in their native rainforest habitat..

Primate researcher Takayoshi Kano rode his bicycle to Wamba in 1973 and helps the bonobos survive the daily onslaught of market driven poaching. We need people to support the observation and witness of the wild ecosystem, less money for fancy research building and more money for conservation programs that encourage people to save the primates (bonobos, orang-utans, maqaques, etc.) in their native rainforest habitat..

The current US military occupation of Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Haiti and other places is part of the problem with a ruling system that cannot resolve conflicts peacefully. We have allowed ineffective males to ascend into positions of extreme power, and their last ditch grab for resources (oil, forest timber, mined minerals, genetically engineered food, etc) is symbolic of the emptiness they feel inside. Prisons, nuclear weapons, toxic pollution are taking their toll on the spirits of everyone..

Bonobos, black walnuts, valley oaks, central valley magpies all have their stories to tell if we only slow down to hear their message. As the sun set on the CA Primate Research Center, magpies flew in around the black walnut trees and glided free through the open sky. The primates in their cages dream of the rainforest they once knew, trees intact, the sun shining on their face and warm rain moist on their skin. Together we all dream of freedom from the destructive corporate prison system engulfing the people of Earth..