"You have helped not only thousands of primates, but also brought hope to all those who care about them and their suffering at human hands. And the numbers of those who care has increased a thousand fold because of the awareness IPPL has raised in countries around the world."

Dr Jane Goodall DBE

Achievements

Here is a small selection of our achievements over the  years:

1974: IPPL exposed a network of smugglers shipping gibbons from Thailand to the USA and got the network closed down, saving hundreds of mother gibbons from being shot so that their babies could be caught.

1975: IPPL organised Project Bangkok Airport. Fifty Thai students worked at the airport logging the dreadful conditions under which all wildlife was exported. The result was a ban on export of all primates from Thailand. This ban saved thousands of primate lives.

1977: IPPL exposed the treatment of monkeys exported from India to the United States in radiation experiments. Our intervention led India to ban all primate exports, saving hundreds of thousands of monkey lives.

1979: IPPL exposed misuse of Bangladesh monkeys in military radiation experiments, leading Bangladesh to cancel plans to export over 70,000 monkeys.

1984: IPPL successfully fought plans by three U.S. zoos to import seven wild-caught gorillas from Cameroon, using the Miami animal dealer, Matthew Block.

1985: After IPPL protested the misuse of Malaysian monkeys in military research, Malaysia banned monkey exports.

1987: IPPL exposed illegal exportation of 3 gorillas from Cameroon, two of whom died on the way to Taiwan; this led to prosecutions of criminals in several countries.

1990: Six baby orangutans were confiscated at Bangkok Airport. IPPL undertook an investigation which identified the smuggler as Matthew Block of Miami. IPPL’s investigative work led to the jailing of the German gorilla smuggler Walter Sensen.

1992: As a result of IPPL’s campaign, Matthew Block was indicted. On learning that the government planned to let him off with a misdemeanor plea-bargain, IPPL members flooded the judge with protests. The judge rejected the deal and sent Block to prison. IPPL Founder & Chairwoman, Shirley McGreal, was chosen for the United Nations Global 500 Honour Roll.

1995: IPPL uncovered a Pakistani gang smuggling gorillas and other endangered primates from Nigeria to the Philippines. Sadly, a confiscated baby gorilla died but two drills were returned to Nigeria for rehabilitation to the wild by the IPPL-assisted Pandrillus project.

1999: IPPL worked with the Indonesian group KSBK to block the export of dozens of proboscis monkeys brutally trapped in an Indonesian nature reserve and sent to Surabaya Zoo where many of them died. Five of the surviving monkeys were returned to the wild.

2002: IPPL learned that four baby gorillas had reached Taiping Zoo, Malaysia, from Ibadan Zoo in Nigeria, on documents falsely claiming that the animals were captive-born.

2007: IPPL celebrated the return of the Taiping Four gorillas to their homeland. They had been smuggled from their Cameroonian birthplace via Nigeria and South Africa to Malaysia. IPPL had worked with various allies since 2002 to have the animals re-homed.

2009: After six years of campaigning against a breeding centre set up in Nepal to breed and export native monkeys to the US for use in biomedical research, the Ministry for Forestry decided that this was in contravention of Nepal law and requested that the captured monkeys be released back into the wild.