International Primate Protection League

It is with pleasure that we record the honour of an O.B.E. awarded to Dr. Shirley McGreal, Chairwoman of The International Primate Protection League (IPPL).  The Investiture took place on the 4th June 2008.

Shirley founded IPPL in 1973 as a charity to combat the international trade in endangered primates.  She had uncovered the smuggling of gibbons from Thailand to an American institution and her life was threatened as a result.  She required protection until she was able to leave the country.

Shirley's world-wide contacts provided the detailed information that enabled the prosecution of traders and their customers.  Her persistence contributed to some remarkable successes and incarceration of some notorious smugglers.  Even a multi-million dollar lawsuit, instituted by a commercial giant who was planning to establish a chimpanzee laboratory in Sierra Leone, failed to intimidate her.  This lawsuit was eventually defeated after several stressful years.

Over the past 3 decades IPPL's role has widened to become a leading force in the conservation and welfare of all primate species.  Many governments found themselves unable to enforce confiscation of illegally held and traded primates through lack of suitable holding and release facilities.  IPPL's response is to encourage rescue and rehabilitation in the habitat countries.  This often includes the provision of financial and advisory support in the early stages, before proven success can attract local and international attention on a wider scale.

It is twenty years since Dian Fossey wrote to Shirley to ask, "What would the apes and monkeys have done without you?".  Her many admirers today still ask the same question.