UNEP’s Vienna office hosted a photo exhibition of unique wildlife pictures, launched a new publication and put on a film screening and discussion for WED.

Entitled ‘Great apes at the crossroads: survival or extinction?,’ some of the pictures in the exhibition were taken in rainforests in the former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and have since been destroyed.

The display was organised together with the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP), the United Nations Information Service Vienna and GRID-Arendal.

During the event, participants heard from eminent experts working in the field of conservation and tourism, including Dr. Johannes Refisch, GRASP Project Manager for UNEP and Dr. Michel Masozera, Rwanda Country Program Director for the Wildlife Conservation Society. The newly-released ‘African Mountains Atlas’ produced by UNEP was also launched during the event, which attracted UN staff, experts from NGOs and academia, governments officials and locally-based journalists.

UNEP’s Vienna Programme Office, which also acts as the Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention, rounded off celebrations on 8 June with a CINE ONU screening of the ‘(R)EVOLUTION’ documentary followed by a discussion with experts.

For more information: matthias.jurek@unep.org