March 5, 2002-3
Copyright © 2002 Earth Policy Institute
Our Closest Relatives Are Disappearing
Janet Larsen
After more than a century of no known primate extinctions, scientists
recently confirmed the disappearance of a subspecies of a West African
monkey. The loss of this monkey, known as Miss Waldron's red colobus,
may be a harbinger of future losses of our closest evolutionary
relatives.
Out of some 240 known primate species, 19
are critically endangered, up from 13 in 1996. This classification
refers to species that have suffered extreme and rapid reductions
in population or habitat. Their remaining numbers range from less
than a few hundred to, at most, a few thousand individuals. If their
populations continue to shrink at recent rates, some species will
not survive this decade. This group, according to the World Conservation
Union's 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, includes 8 monkeys
from Brazil's Atlantic rainforest, where 97 percent of the forest
has been lost, 2 apes and a monkey from Indonesia, 3 monkeys from
Viet Nam, 1 each from Kenya and Peru, and 3 lemur species from Madagascar.
At the endangered level, the IUCN's next
degree of threat, there are 46 primate species, up from 29 in 1996.
These species face a very high probability of extinction, some within
the next 20 years. An additional 51 species are listed as vulnerable.
These primates have slightly larger populations but still may disappear
within this century. Critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable
species together total 116, or nearly half of the 240 some primate
species.
When the last Ice Age ended 10,000 years
ago, baboons outnumbered humans by at least 2 to 1. If all non-human
primate populations were counted together, including the large populations
of some of the smaller species, they dwarfed the human population.
Now that has changed. The development of agriculture allowed for
rapid human population growth, and about 2,000 years ago, humans-numbering
300 million-became the most abundant of the primates. By 1930, the
human population of 2 billion likely outnumbered all other primates
combined.
Today, at 6.1 billion and climbing, we are
threatening the survival of many of our primate cousins, including
our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, with
which we share over 98 percent of our genome. The other apes are
quite close to us as well, not only genetically, but also in observed
behavior. Yet with the 300,000 human babies born each day exceeding
the total population of the great apes, even our evolutionary proximity
may not prevent us from eradicating our near-kin.
While humans now inhabit every corner of
the earth, most other primates exhibit strong endemism, meaning
that a species is restricted to a particular area. Almost three
quarters of all primates live in just four countries: Brazil, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Indonesia, and
Madagascar. In each of these countries, forest cover is decreasing.
Because habitat loss is a danger to 90 percent of threatened primates,
their concentration in a few countries greatly increases their vulnerability.
In Indonesia, diverse forests and wild inhabitants
have suffered from logging fueled by corruption and political instability.
Within the past decade, deforestation rates doubled, claiming almost
2 million hectares each year. As deforestation rates doubled, orangutan
numbers dropped by half. By 2005, the country faces the loss of
all lowland forest from Sumatra, and thus the extinction of the
critically endangered Sumatran orangutan, among many other species.
The Borneo orangutan, after suffering from logging, hunting, and
the catastrophic fires of 1997, is not likely to survive beyond
2010 if current trends continue.
Our closest relative, the bonobo, is endemic
to the Congo, a country plagued by civil war and occupation by foreign
military and rebel groups. Along with many other primates in the
region, the slow-breeding bonobo has seen a rapid decline. In 1980
there were close to 100,000 bonobos; now there may be fewer than
10,000.
Although the civil war has created millions
of human refugees and may have elevated the demand for meat from
wild animals (bushmeat), the resulting sluggish economic development
may have slowed logging in the Congo, the country containing half
of Africa's remaining tropical moist forests. If political stability
returns, tree cutting could increase several fold in the next few
years, accelerating what could be the first great ape extinction.
Gorilla populations have dropped to dangerously
low levels, largely from illegal commercial bushmeat hunting. Fewer
than 325 mountain gorillas exist, and all are in one subpopulation
spanning Rwanda, the Congo, and Uganda. The rarest, the Cross River
Gorilla, is limited to only 150 to 200 individuals scattered among
several lingering subpopulations on the Cameroon/Nigeria border
region.
In parts of
West and Central Africa, hunting is an even greater threat than
forest loss. There the bushmeat trade, consisting primarily of forest
antelope, pigs, and primates, is worth over $1 billion a year. In
areas where social turmoil has ravaged traditional economic activities,
and the average annual family income is less than $100, the lure
of earning $300 to $1,000 each year as a hunter has enticed many.
Logging and, to a lesser extent, mining companies have penetrated
forests, with their settlements increasing bushmeat demand, while
their roads facilitate hunting.
Exploitative hunting is not profitable in
the long term, however, because wild populations, especially those
of the large and slow-reproducing apes, are soon decimated. Over
1 million tons of wild meat is consumed annually in the Congo Basin,
almost 6 times more than the forests' sustainable yield. Commercial
hunting has emptied forests that were once full of animals.
Though rural communities have long subsisted
on wild animals and other forest foods, with up to 60 percent of
their protein coming from bushmeat, most bushmeat from this region
is now consumed in cities. Almost half of the 30 million people
living in the forested regions of Central Africa are city-dwellers
who are being fed with bushmeat from collapsing wildlife populations.
As cities grow and bushmeat hunting accelerates to meet rising demand,
it is estimated that hunting could eliminate all viable African
ape populations in fewer than 20 years.
To save other primates from being lost in
what is considered the earth's sixth major extinction event, resources
are needed to curb illegal logging and hunting. Illegal logging
has ruined vast stretches of original primate habitat. Much of the
bushmeat hunted comes from protected areas, and international trade
in primates is already unlawful under the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species. But when enforcement is lacking, illegal
practices continue.
Large wilderness blocks of biologically
rich areas can be converted to new parks that take into account
the needs of wildlife and human populations. Ecotourism endeavors
can be used to support primate conservation, and hunters can find
alternative income in park protection work once they realize that
live animals can be much more valuable than dead ones.
Understanding ourselves better-our biology,
psychology, and sociology-depends in part on understanding our closest
living relatives better. If we destroy them, we may never fully
understand ourselves.
Copyright
© 2002 Earth Policy Institute
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FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Russell Mittermeier, "Biodiversity
Issues Affecting Primates," keynote paper from The Apes:
Challenges for the 21st Century, Brookfield Zoo, Chicago, May
2000.
John F. Oates et al., "Extinction of a West African
Red Colobus Monkey," Conservation Biology, v. 14, no. 5,
5 October 2000, pp. 1526-1532.
Gay Reinhartz and Inogwabini Bila Isia, "Bonobo
Survival and a Wartime Conservation Mandate," keynote paper
from The Apes: Challenges for the 21st Century, Brookfield
Zoo, Chicago, May 2000.
Species Survival Commission (Craig Hilton-Taylor,
compiler), 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Gland,
Switzerland, and Cambridge, UK: World Conservation Union-IUCN, 2000).
John Tuxill, "Death in the Family Tree," World
Watch, September/October 1997, pp. 13-21.
Carel P. van Schaik, "Securing
a Future for the Wild Orangutan," keynote paper from The
Apes: Challenges for the 21st Century, Brookfield Zoo, Chicago,
May 2000.
David S. Wilkie and Julia F. Carpenter, "Bushmeat
Hunting in the Congo Basin: An Assessment of Impacts and Options
for Mitigation," paper from The Apes: Challenges for the
21st Century, Brookfield Zoo, Chicago, May 2000.
LINKS
The Apes: Challenges for the 21st Century, Brookfield
Zoo Conference, May 2000
http:/www.brookfieldzoo.org
Bush Meat Crisis Task Force
http:/www.bushmeat.org
Conservation International
http:/www.conservation.org
Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)
http:/www.cites.org
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species http:/www.iucnredlist.org/
Jane Goodall Institute
http:/www.janegoodall.org
The Species Survival Commission of the World Conservation
Union http:/www.iucn.org/themes/ssc
TRAFFIC
http:/www.traffic.org/bushmeat
United Nations Environment Programme Great Apes
Survival Project (GRASP) http:/www.unep.org/grasp
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