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  UNEP website, 1 Sep 05
Poverty Will Make the Great Apes History
World’s First Atlas of Great Apes reveals human struggle behind apes’ plight

PlanetArk, 1 Sep 05
New Atlas Highlights Plight of World's Great Apes
Story by Jeremy Lovell

BBC News website, 1 Sep 05
Apes 'extinct in a generation'
By Richard Black BBC News website environment correspondent

Some of the great apes - chimps, gorillas, and orangutans - could be extinct in the wild within a human generation, a new assessment concludes.

Human settlement, logging, mining and disease mean that orangutans in parts of Indonesia may lose half of their habitat within five years. There are now more than 20,000 humans on the planet for every chimpanzee.

The World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation is published by the UN's environment and biodiversity agencies. It brings together data from many sources in an attempt to assess comprehensively the prospects for the remaining great apes; the gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos of Africa, and the orangutans of south-east Asia.

Gloomy outlook
The great apes; status check At-a-glance

The general conclusion is that the outlook is poor. "All of the great apes are listed as either endangered or critically endangered," co-author Lera Miles from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre near Cambridge told the BBC News website. "Critically endangered means that their numbers have decreased, or will decrease, by 80% within three generations."

One critically endangered species is the Sumatran orangutan, of which around 7,300 remain in the wild. Most live in Aceh province at the northern tip of Sumatra, which saw armed conflict for decades between the Indonesian government and separatist rebels, and which suffered heavily during December's tsunami. In mid-August, a peace deal was signed which may end the 29-year conflict.

"The irony is that just as things are getting better for the people of Aceh, they're getting worse for wildlife, with people collecting timber, dormant logging concessions being activated, and illegal logging as well," said Dr Miles. "Projections show that in 50 years' time, there could be as few as 250 left in the wild; but that's not a viable size for a population."

The other species of orangutan, in Borneo, is much better off, with around 45,000 animals remaining; though data gathered for this report by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) and its biodiversity agency the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) suggests that numbers have declined 10-fold since the middle of the last century.

African falls

The mountain gorilla of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Cross River gorilla, found on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon, are also listed as critically endangered, with numbers estimated at 700 and 250 respectively.

For gorillas and chimpanzees, ebola fever is emerging as a significant threat. Why ebola is now taking its toll of apes is not clear, but may be connected with forest clearance. One theory is that the as yet unidentified animal which harbours the virus lives on the edges of forests; logging creates more edges, and so enhances the transmission of ebola.

An expert group of researchers which convened in May has just released an action plan for conserving apes in western equatorial Africa. "If we find ways to protect apes from the ebola virus, we also will protect humans," it concludes.

But disease is not the only threat to the well-being of chimpanzees, their close relatives bonobos, and gorillas. Bushmeat hunting and habitat removal by logging are also major issues. The 1990s saw forest cover declining in all African countries where gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos live.

Close to human

The World Atlas comes with a foreword by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in which he argues forcibly for the preservation of apes. "The great apes are our kin," he writes. "Like us, they are self-aware and have cultures, tools, politics, and medicines; they can learn to use sign language, and have conversations with people and with each other. "Sadly, however, we have not treated them with the respect they deserve."

His thesis on the close kinship of ape and man has been reinforced by the publication this week of the chimpanzee genome, demonstrating that humans and chimps share 99% of their active genetic material.

But stopping the decline of ape populations may not be easy, with human encroachment continuing, often under the pressure of poverty.

A key player is the Great Ape Survival Project (Grasp), launched under UN auspices in 2001, which aims to establish strategies for all regions of Africa and Asia which still have ape populations. It holds its first council meeting next week in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

PlanetArk, 1 Sep 05
New Atlas Highlights Plight of World's Great Apes
Story by Jeremy Lovell

LONDON - The first detailed global map of the world's great apes -- from gorillas to orangutans -- shows they are in deep trouble. The World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation, published by the United Nations to coincide with world great apes day on Thursday, illustrates the need for concerted international action, the UN said. The UN described the atlas as "the most comprehensive compendium of information about great apes ever compiled".

The 23 states in which the apes live in the wild are among the world's poorest. Poverty, encroachments caused by logging and population growth, the booming bushmeat trade, disease and climate change are threatening entire species. "We have a duty to rescue our closest living relatives as part of our wider responsibilities to conserve the ecosystems they inhabit," said UN Environment Programme chief Klaus Toepfer.

The atlas says 16 of the states where the eastern and western gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and Sumatran and Bornean orangutans roam have per capita incomes of less than $800 a year.

Already more than a dozen key locations -- from Cameroon to the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- have been identified as priority sites for gorillas and chimpanzees, and more are expected to be added in coming years.

The atlas was published a day after conservationists called for a five-year, $30 million plan to try to save some of the most threatened great ape species in Africa.

In Asia orangutans are predicted to lose nearly half of their habitat within five years through mining, logging and human encroachment.

"Within a generation -- without better protection -- we could see species becoming too depleted to survive long term in the wild," said atlas editors Julian Caldecott and Lera Miles. Ian Singleton, scientific director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, also made a stark forecast.

"Fifty years from now only seven of the current 13 orangutan populations are expected to remain. Of these, six will consist of fewer than 20 individuals," he said.

It is not only human activities that are threatening to eradicate the great apes -- diseases like Ebola haemorrhagic fever are also speeding their demise. "Local people's attitudes are critical to the survival of the apes in any given area, so projects that help to develop sustainable livelihoods in tandem with ape protection will be most successful," said broadcaster Charlotte Uhlenbroek.

UNEP website, 1 Sep 05
Poverty Will Make the Great Apes History
World’s First Atlas of Great Apes reveals human struggle behind apes’ plight

London 1st September 2005: Fewer than 250 wild Sumatran orangutans may exist in fifty years, their habitat is disappearing and the devastation of the Asian tsunami has accelerated the rate of destruction.

This is among the findings being announced at the launch of the first World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation today (1st September 2005) by the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, which reveals that it is not just humans that will benefit from a campaign to ‘make poverty history’.

For the other 6 species of great ape – the eastern and western gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo, Sumatran and Bornean orangutan – it could literally save them from the cooking pot.

The first World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation provides a country-by-country assessment of the 23 range states hosting the wild great apes. These countries are among the poorest in the world (1), so concerted international action is required if these species are to survive.

The Atlas, edited at the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, is the most comprehensive compendium of information about great apes ever compiled, bringing together the latest research and observations from scientists throughout the world and including contributions from Kofi Annan, Jane Goodall, Richard Leakey, Toshisada Nishida, Russ Mittermeier and Ian Redmond.

The book includes conservation status assessments at a species and country view level. The great apes’ biology, behaviour and culture are discussed in detail. Information from the Atlas will be used to focus international attention for an eleventh hour conservation effort aimed at saving humankind's closest living relatives from extinction.

If current trends continue, by 2032: 99% of the orangutan range will suffer medium to high impacts from human development, as will 90% of the gorilla range, 92% of chimpanzee range and 96% of bonobo range. The Atlas provides population estimates for the apes (see table) and reveals that the survival of the apes is threatened by: -

Poverty of host countries – 16 out of the 23 great range states have a per capita income of less than US $800.

Growing bushmeat crisis - The Atlas raises concerns over the increasing trade in great ape bushmeat, and the sale of orphans to expatriates wanting to 'rescue them'. Entire groups of adults may be killed to capture one orphan for sale. In Central Africa, a single chimpanzee or gorilla carcass can fetch the equivalent of US$20-25.

Fragile habitats - The Atlas maps the impact of infrastructure development on wildlife, and uses the GLOBIO computer model to simulate future changes. Independent studies support these findings, predicting that if current trends in Indonesia and Malaysia persist, the orangutan will lose 47% of its habitat in the next 5 years (2), whilst at least 24% of the bonobo’s range in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is already under logging concessions.

Habitat fragmentation - The Atlas presents new information on the distribution of the Cross River gorilla, one of the two subspecies of western gorilla, which has only around 250 to 280 individuals left. These few animals are distributed amongst more than ten fragmented highland areas. Fragmentation isolates great ape populations from one another, increasing their vulnerability.

Disease - It is also increasingly clear that disease, especially Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is playing a part in the decline of ape populations and new research is needed, along with stronger efforts to limit disease transmission.
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