Atmos Consulting, based in Mold, Flintshire, usually works providing renewable energy and environmental consultancy throughout Wales, England and Scotland.

But Atmos conservation expert Mike Jordan, who spent years as a zoo curator, has been taking a walk on the wild side.

He headed to North East India to help plan and run an international project aimed at saving the endangered gibbon population from extinction.

The Western Hoolock gibbon is one of the most threatened primate species in the world and is only found in North East India and Bangladesh.

Even there, their populations are declining and fragmented by loss of the natural forest due to agriculture, settlement and commercial activities such as oil exploration.

Many of the remaining gibbons are now stranded in tiny patches of forest left after the large forests have been cleared. They have become completely isolated from other gibbons and are facing a short and bleak future.

Their survival relies on a project to catch these isolated family groups and relocate them into much larger patches of protected forest where they can be with other gibbon families as part of large safer populations.

Mike kick-started this process with a meeting of 40 Indian and Bangladeshi foresters and conservationists in Guwahati, Assam.

Organised by the Indian conservation body, the Zoo Outreach Organisation and funded by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the aim of the project is to highlight priority areas, including planning the gibbons' movement and training up local foresters in working with and conserving the primates.

Mike said: "Relocating wild animals is always a difficult and complicated process, but to do it on this scale and with apes is particularly challenging.

"However, the future survival of the species relies upon this project and the meeting in Guwahati has been an excellent start."

He added "It is difficult to work in the rough terrain of this region of India, particularly with the heavy monsoon season and it can be difficult accessing some areas.

"It is hoped, however, that during 2009 we can start to catch and move the first families to their new larger and safer homes in protected forest reserves."