The Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) is a

UNEP The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the Declaration of the United Nati ...

and

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

-led

World Summit on Sustainable Development The World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002, took place in South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002. It was convened to discuss sustainable development organizations, 10 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. (It was t ...

(WSSD) Type II Partnership, established in 2001, that aims to conserve the non-

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

great ape The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); '' Gorilla'' (the ...

s (

chimpanzee The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...

bonobo The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee (less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee), is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus ''Pan (genus), Pan'' (the other bei ...

gorilla Gorillas are primarily herbivorous, terrestrial great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four or five su ...

s and

orangutan Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus ...

s) and their habitats—primarily forested tropical ecosystems that provide important services to humanity, through pro-poor conservation and sustainable development strategies.

Background

GRASP involves all the principal institutional actors in great

ape Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a superfamily of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe in prehistory, and counting humans are found global ...

conservation—

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

agencies, biodiversity-related multilateral environmental agreements,

range state and donor governments, non-governmental organizations, scientists, local communities and the private sector. Non-human great apes are found in 21 countries in Africa and in two countries in South East Asia. Great ape populations are declining worldwide. The continuing destruction of habitat, in combination with the growth in the commercial bushmeat trade in Africa, have led scientists to suggest that the majority of great ape populations may be extinct in our lifetime. Even if isolated populations were to survive, the long-term viability of these great apes is in doubt due to their limited numbers and the fragmentation of their habitat. The endangered great apes share their habitat with millions of humans, the majority of whom live below the poverty line. The need to link the welfare of humans and wildlife is a central objective of the GRASP Partnership. International commitment to the great apes was reaffirmed at an Intergovernmental Meeting on great apes and the first GRASP Council Meeting held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in September 2005, where the

Kinshasa Declaration on Great Apes The Kinshasa Declaration on Great Apes was a high-level political statement on the future of (non-human) great apes. It was signed during the Intergovernmental Meeting on Great Apes and the first council meeting of the Great Apes Survival Partne ...

was adopted by more than 70 signatories.

Threats to great apes

Habitat destruction

Almost all non-human primate populations are impacted by anthropogenic activities in the form of

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

. The main contributors to habitat loss are farming, urbanization, deforestation, and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. Suitable environmental conditions for great apes have been on the decline and many populations are on the brink of extinction. The growth of habitat destruction shows no signs of stopping, potentially leading to mass extinctions of all great apes. The first ever continent-wide assessment of suitable environmental conditions (SEC) for great apes predicted a loss of 207,927 km² from the years 1995–2010. Loss of predicted SEC appeared highest for Cross River gorillas (59%), followed by eastern gorillas (52%),

western lowland gorilla The western lowland gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla gorilla'') is one of two Critically Endangered subspecies of the western gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla'') that lives in Montane ecosystems#Montane forests, montane, Old-growth forest, primary and sec ...

s (32%),

s (29%),

central chimpanzee The central chimpanzee or the tschego (''Pan troglodytes troglodytes'') is a subspecies of chimpanzee. It can be found in Central Africa, mostly in Gabon, Cameroon, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Central chimp ...

s (17%) and western chimpanzees (11%).

Bushmeat

Bushmeat trade occurs all over tropical Africa, Asia and the Neotropics. Urbanization and improved technology provide greater access to remote areas, increasing the bushmeat trade market. Bushmeat has become an important factor of the economy. The majority of hunting in Central and West African villages is for cash rather than consumption. The industry is estimated to contribute $24M – $42M USD annually to the African economy. The hunting of apes and the sale of their meat for human consumption has been reported from many countries including Nigeria, Central African Republic, Congo-Brazzaville, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea. It is estimated that 0.02 chimpanzees and 0.01 gorillas per square kilometre are hunted per year. This accounts for 5–7% of their populations directly lost due to the bushmeat trade.

Infectious diseases

An undermined threat to great ape populations is the transmission of pathogens from humans. There has been a total of 33 recorded occurrences of probably or confirmed pathogen transmission from humans to great apes between the years 1964–2012. The spread of infectious diseases poses a severe threat to already endangered great ape populations. Despite the severe risk of pathogen transmission, disease monitoring is only conducted for a small percentage of the world’s great apes. This lack of monitoring is the greatest limiting factor in our ability to detect outbreaks and reduce the loss of great ape life.

Conservation and poverty

Most countries involved in the Great Apes Survival partnership fall close or below the poverty line. Rather than viewing poverty and ape conservation as different issues, GRASP emphasizes the need to link the two together. People living in developing countries are often highly dependent on biodiversity to meet their livelihood needs. However, most threats faced by great apes are intensified by the poverty of people living in proximity. The reliance of poor, rural communities on forest resources may result in threats due to hunting practices that directly and indirectly target great apes for food or international trade; agricultural conversion or destructive gathering practices that directly degrade great ape habitats and by virtue of their vicinity, facilitate the transmission of human pathogens to the apes. To mitigate the threats poverty poses on ape populations, conservation approaches must involve all relevant stakeholders. This includes: industry, government, financial institutions, wildlife, ecosystems, local and indigenous communities.

References

External links

GRASP website
{{Apes Organizations established in 2001 Conservation projects UNESCO United Nations Environment Programme Primate conservation