Folly Farm has donated a further £1,000 to the charity Barbary Macaque Conservation in the Rif (BMCRif).

The money will fund BMCRif's annual football tournament in Morocco which enable this Moroccan NGO to engage with children and raise awareness about the importance of the Barbary Macaque to the area and the dangers facing the species continued survival.

The annual tournaments have already educated over 300 children and their families as to why they should not accept money to capture infant Barbary Macaques from their families to sell for the illegal pet trade or to persecute and kill them.

This is the second year Folly Farm has sponsored the tournament and it also stepped in early this year with a donation of £500 for repairs to the charity's Land Rover (affectionately known as the 'Monkey Bus') which is essential for them to carry out their conservation and awareness work in the remote mountain areas of North Morocco.

Sian Waters, who is from Tredegar and heads up the charity, said: "Without the help of organisations like Folly Farm we would not be able to continue with the valuable in-situ conservation work we carry out.

"We appreciate the efforts of businesses that have so many time and financial pressures, making that extra effort to support conservation efforts like ours. It makes a huge difference to us as every penny raised by Folly Farm goes directly to our conservation work and saves macaques' lives.

"In the example of the football tournament, young men and boys from six villages have now voluntarily stopped persecuting, capturing and killing macaques in the forests and they now tell us when they have seen them instead. We are grateful for Folly Farm's loyal support and appreciate that they realise conservation is not just about looking after endangered species in captivity, but getting hands on in their native habitats."

Tim Morphew, zoo manager at Folly Farm, added: "The work undertaken by Sian and BMCRif is vital to safeguarding the future of this endangered species. The only way to stop animals being taken for the illegal pet trade is by engaging with the community and BMCRif have found a unique way of doing this through the football tournaments, making conservation fun and also providing entertainment for the children, who have to spend a lot of time working on the family farms and for whom football is so important."

Folly Farm is home to a group of Barbary Macaques re-homed from a sanctuary in the Netherlands for Macaques confiscated, abandoned or mistreated from the illegal pet trade.

Folly Farm supported the Red Light Campaign to reclassify the species from vulnerable to endangered which succeeded in 2008 under advice from Sian Waters and other scientists.

Folly Farm continues to raise awareness for Barbary Macaques through signage at their enclosure and through its ongoing conservation work with the likes of BMCRif and AAP in the Netherlands.