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26/11/2003
$25m needed to stave off great ape extinction threat
The UN has urgently called for $25 million to lift the threat of imminent extinction from humankind’s closest living relatives.
UNESCO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) believe that it is "essential for reducing the risk of extinction" of the world’s remaining gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, and for establishing areas where ape populations could stabilise or even increase. Every one of the great ape species is at high risk of extinction, either in the immediate future or at best within 50 years, the environmental groups said.
Klaus Toepfer, UNEP Executive Director, said: “$25 million is the bare minimum we need, the equivalent of providing a dying man with bread and water.
“The clock is standing at one minute to midnight for the great apes, animals that share more than 96% of their DNA with humans. If we lose any great ape species we will be destroying a bridge to our own origins, and with it part of our own humanity.
Koïchiro Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General, said that saving the great apes and the ecosystems they inhabit was "not just a conservation issue but a key action in the fight against poverty”.
UNESCO research has indicated that the western chimpanzee has already disappeared from three countries - Benin, the Gambia and Togo. UNESCO and UNEP, co-ordinators of the Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), fear that if urgent action is not taken the next wave of country-level extinction could take place in Senegal, where a mere 200 to 400 wild chimpanzees remain.
Other countries where the fate of the western chimpanzee hangs in the balance include Ghana, which has just 300 to 500 left, and Guinea Bissau where the population is down to less than 200 individual animals.
Under the auspices of UNEP and UNESCO, representatives from the 23 great ape home “range states” in Africa and South East Asia as well as donor governments, UN agencies, NGOs and other GRASP partners are currently meeting to "draw up nothing less than a survival plan for the great apes".
(gmcg)
UNESCO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) believe that it is "essential for reducing the risk of extinction" of the world’s remaining gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans, and for establishing areas where ape populations could stabilise or even increase. Every one of the great ape species is at high risk of extinction, either in the immediate future or at best within 50 years, the environmental groups said.
Klaus Toepfer, UNEP Executive Director, said: “$25 million is the bare minimum we need, the equivalent of providing a dying man with bread and water.
“The clock is standing at one minute to midnight for the great apes, animals that share more than 96% of their DNA with humans. If we lose any great ape species we will be destroying a bridge to our own origins, and with it part of our own humanity.
Koïchiro Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General, said that saving the great apes and the ecosystems they inhabit was "not just a conservation issue but a key action in the fight against poverty”.
UNESCO research has indicated that the western chimpanzee has already disappeared from three countries - Benin, the Gambia and Togo. UNESCO and UNEP, co-ordinators of the Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), fear that if urgent action is not taken the next wave of country-level extinction could take place in Senegal, where a mere 200 to 400 wild chimpanzees remain.
Other countries where the fate of the western chimpanzee hangs in the balance include Ghana, which has just 300 to 500 left, and Guinea Bissau where the population is down to less than 200 individual animals.
Under the auspices of UNEP and UNESCO, representatives from the 23 great ape home “range states” in Africa and South East Asia as well as donor governments, UN agencies, NGOs and other GRASP partners are currently meeting to "draw up nothing less than a survival plan for the great apes".
(gmcg)
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