"Their Plight is Desperate"

Current rates of habitat loss may eliminate orangutans from Southeast Asia within 30 years. (Born Free Foundation)

'It becomes a moral responsibility to save these amazing beings from extinction," asserted Dr. Jane Goodall at the WSSD. "Their plight is desperate."

This call to action came at the launch of a new phase in the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), designed in part to assess the root causes of increasing population declines among great apes.

Gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans - the "great apes" - are at perilous risk from environmentally destructive activities such as logging and mining and the systematic slaughter for their flesh. As UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer noted, "Uncontrolled road construction in these areas is fragmenting and destroying the great apes' last homes and making it easier for poachers to slaughter them for meat and their young more valuable to capture for the illegal pet trade." The greatest conservation crisis facing primates in Central Africa today is the bushmeat trade, according to Dr. Goodall.

GRASP is preparing a World Atlas of Great Apes to show distribution information and threat analyses for these animals. GRASP representatives also will continue to hold workshops in specific primate range states and meet with mining company representatives to discuss their impact on the environment.