Sanctuaries have multiple uses for light in places they  have no lights, such as food storage rooms, supply storage rooms, night enclosures, and moving about the sanctuary for security checks and maintenance. Sanctuaries are limited in many cases to 2-4 hours of noisy generator power per day. Generators are problematic and break down regularly; they are typically powered by costly/polluting diesel. LUCI lights provide a valuable portable light source reducing generator running cost and need. Ironically we could see LUCI lights illuminating workers trying to fix generators.

One of the more obvious application is in education for the schools and villages surrounding the ape sanctuaries and conservation areas. Just as the sanctuaries are restricted by generators and solar for their restricted power use – so too the schools/villages surrounding them, even more so. Lights also play a huge role in classrooms during the day. Most of these classrooms are not lit by anything but limited natural light. LUCIs play a key role in lighting the schools. In the homes of student light is principally kerosene lamps, wood and charcoal fires – all of these have negative health and environmental impacts. Charcoal in particular not only emits unhealthy soot, but causes tremendous forest damage. Deforestation and forest fragmentation, due to charcoal making, is at record levels of damage throughout the world, and especially acute in the Equatorial tropics where great apes live, and over 2 billion people struggle to survive. Kerosene, wood, and charcoal indoors also present a fire hazard.

Most of the veterinarian clinics are located on the sanctuary grounds and as such are limited in their power use to generators and occasionally solar panels. This makes work during early morning and late evening hours complicated. LUCI lights play a significant role in vets being able to keep up-to-date on paperwork and files, pre-mixing medications, and dealing with emergency situations. The portability of LUCI lights also enables them to do work in areas and enclosures previously not possible or extremely awkward do to poor ambient lighting – such as a medical procedure in an ape enclosure where a patient can not be moved to the clinic. Additionally, many of these vet clinics are the only functional health facility to attend lacerations, malaria, infections, etc. as a consequence, while not a human doctor many ape vets need to function as the defacto health person.