I am sleeping with a baby chimpanzee right now. Lying in bed, she clings to my body. At times she puts her head on my pillow. Inevitably, she takes the sheets. She lounges in the center of the mattress, relegating me to a corner. At six a.m. she hoots for milk and, like an alarm clock, signals the end to my night shift.

Passed to a different keeper during the day, this chimpanzee had been suddenly uprooted from her home. In her confusion, she must quietly ask, "Where is my mother?" The disturbing truth: her mother is dead. She was eaten, baked as bushmeat.

This is life in Cameroon, a country so blessed in biodiversity that if you even wanted to make a "meal out of a monkey", you would have difficulty choosing from the 31 species of primate. Nestled between the Atlantic Ocean, Nigeria, and Congo, West and Central Africa meet in Cameroon.

In early September as another year began at U of T, I flew to the capital city of Yaounde to assist in Professor Kerry Bowman's research and conservation efforts with the Cameroon Wildlife Aid Fund at the Yaounde Zoo. This rehabilitation centre helps young animals left parentless by the bushmeat trade and serves as an education centre for the local population.

Sharing a flat with me are three British researchers, three gorillas, two chimpanzees and a cobra. The city outside our front doors spreads over rolling hills, and palm trees and buildings cling to the mountainsides. Tin roofs rust brown and red as if to match the colour of the ground. The red soil stains your shoes, paints your pants, and turns rain the colour of blood. In the picturesque setting, it is the only reminder of the slaughter occurring in the forests.

Occasionally, however, there are other, more palpable reminders. Travelling through these forests one day, my bus suddenly came to a stop. We reversed into oncoming traffic and drove backward for a kilometer in search of a snake seen in the ditch. While the other passengers cheered, the bus driver clubbed the reptile to death and threw the decapitated body into the back of the vehicle, to eat later.

The slaughter and consumption of meat from the forest, including snakes and primates, but also porcupines, antelope, cane rats, is a traditional activity in Equatorial Africa. In recent decades, however, it has grown into a commercial trade. Logging roads have unlocked impenetrable jungle: modern weapons make it easy to kill a charging silverback gorilla.

Hunting now occurs on to such a degree that edible wildlife could be butchered before habitat is torn down. In fact, there may be no viable populations of great apes in the wild within 50 years. The bushmeat trade is one of the world's most pressing conservation issues.

While scientists, politicians and industry debate the fate of the forests, the future of many local Africans is also at stake. The bushmeat trade is a phenomenon that is entwined with many economic and social issues. For instance, money from the sale of gorilla meat can be used to support a human family. The creation of nature reserves and rehabilitation centers alone ignores key issues. Conservation efforts must provide alternative incomes to poachers. As well as needs of animals, the needs of local people and their individual struggles must be addressed.

Education is equally important in order to increase understanding about the environment. Personally, I try to enhance empathetic relationships with animals by creating an appropriate education program for school children.

Away from U of T, my own education continues. It has been a thrill to work with zookeepers, researchers, UN workers and Cameroonians my age. A club here is often a small wooden room with mirrors and a disco ball, and roars with Sisco and Ricky Martin. I have replaced fall colours and dropping temperatures in Canada with a permanent summer, and a life, in and of itself, full of colour. When Cameroon recently won the Olympic gold medal in soccer, the country's first-ever gold medal, people danced through the streets. The chimpanzees in the zoo hooted as well, in a symbolic display of camaraderie.

Cameroon is blessed both the joys of life and cursed with battles of survival. I now take for granted the chimpanzee sleeping in my bed and sharing my dreams. And I hope that someday this chimpanzee will be able to take life in the rainforest for granted too.