Seeking to honor Africa’s next generation of wildlife leaders, the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) today announced the creation of the PASA Siddle-Marsden Award, which will be given annually to the PASA sanctuary staff member that best exemplifies a commitment to primates, a commitment to conservation, and a commitment to excellence. Only African national staff members at PASA sanctuaries are eligible for the award, which includes a plaque and a $250 USD prize. Each PASA sanctuary may nominate one staff member. The inaugural PASA Siddle-Marsden Award will be given at the PASA 2008 Management Workshop, which will be staged April 2-4 in Sierra Leone. The PASA award is named for sanctuary pioneers David Siddle and Stella Brewer Marsden, both of whom passed away in recent months. Siddle joined with his wife, Sheila Siddle, to create the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage in Zambia in 1983, while Marsden established the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Association in Gambia nine years earlier. The two sanctuaries rank among the oldest permanent conservation projects in Africa. “PASA is pleased to be able to honor the incredibly dedicated men and women who work to repair the shattered lives of so many chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, drills and monkeys,” said Doug Cress, executive director of PASA. “The PASA Siddle-Marsden Award allows us to highlight both our past and our future.”
Chimfunshi and the CRA are both charter members of PASA, the organization that was formed in 2000 to unite the sanctuaries that care for thousands of endangered primates across Africa. For more information, please visit www.pasaprimates.org or contact [email protected].
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