Grim future for
gorillas and chimps
By Tim Hirsch
BBC environment correspondent
Two of man's closest relatives in the animal kingdom will be
on the edge of extinction within a decade, unless drastic conservation
measures are put in place immediately.
The idea that our
closest relatives would go extinct is shattering to us
Peter Walsh, Princeton University
That is the alarming conclusion of a major international study
of gorillas and chimpanzees in the forests of Western Equatorial Africa,
published in the scientific journal Nature.
The dense jungles of the Republic of Congo and Gabon were
previously thought to be the last stronghold of the two species, since deforestation
in this region has been much less intense than in other parts of Africa.
But a comprehensive survey of ape numbers in Gabon between 1998 and
2002 has revealed a dramatic decline in the population in recent years, caused
by a combination of commercial hunting for bush meat, and the deadly Ebola
virus which has also attacked local people.
'Stark truth'
By comparing the figures with a survey carried out in the
early 1980s, the researchers conclude that on a conservative estimate,
gorillas and chimpanzees have declined by more than half within 20 years.
Gabon and Congo account for around
80% of the world's gorillas and most of the common chimpanzees, so this is
described by the study as a major conservation crisis.
Gorilla and chimp numbers have dropped more than 50% since
1983
"Without aggressive investments in law enforcement,
protected area management and Ebola prevention, the next decade will see
our closest relatives pushed to the brink of extinction," the Nature
paper says.
"The stark truth is that if we do not act decisively our
children may live in a world without wild apes."
One of the major problems facing the apes is that they are now
being killed for their meat on a commercial scale, where hunting used to be
confined to local villagers providing food for themselves.
The real thing
The timber trade has driven roads deep into the forest,
providing easier access for hunters to areas previously out of reach. Bush
meat finds a ready market in the towns and cities of the region - this has
long ceased to be a subsistence activity.
And rivalling hunting as a threat to
the apes is Ebola haemorrhagic fever, steadily
spreading through Gabon and Congo. The epidemic is
now approaching Odzala National Park, which boasts the
world's highest recorded gorilla and chimpanzee densities.
The lead author of the study, Peter Walsh of Princeton
University, US, says he recognises that people have become accustomed to dire
warnings about endangered species.
He told BBC News Online: "Environmentalists are always
saying the sky is falling in, but in this case it is.
"The reason we published this in Nature is because we realised people would have those objections. We did a
careful scientific study with a lot of data - they sent it out to the best
experts in the world, and they all said yes this is valid.
Global
responsibility
"The populations are crashing really quickly. In the
course of about 10 years we're going to be in the situation where gorillas and
chimpanzees are going to go from being widely distributed and abundant to
being just in a few small pockets.
"That's bad because in the long term those small pockets
just won't be sustainable, we won't be able to protect 10 here and 50 there
- it will be impossible.
"The idea that our closest relatives would go extinct is
shattering to us. We don't want to have people looking back in 20 years and
say they didn't do enough - they knew what to do but they didn't do it.
"This is a problem for the global community - everybody
in the world has to get together and do something about this."
