BIOPLAN POSTING 2001-5-1
BIOPLAN POSTING 2001-5-1
05/28/01 05:16 PM
bioplan
"David Duthie" <David.Duthie@unep.org>
Dear BIOPLANNERS,
The great apes biodiversity crisis continues to get worse, but there
is
some glimmer of hope if the project announced below generates some
real
momentum.
First is the UNEP Press Release announcing GRASP, and then another gloomy
report on the bushmeat situation in Africa.
The UNEP Global Telecoms Initiative has just announced an Environmental
Code as part of their contribution to World Environment Day - let's
hope
that this can include some impact on indirect effects of the industry
such
as increased demand for bushmeat from artisanal tantalite miners.
Best wishes
David Duthie
***************************************************
International Initiative To Save Great Apes Launched
By UNEP As Experts Warn That Humankind's Closest
Relatives Doomed Without Urgent Action
Washington/Nairobi 21 May 2001 - A major international project to
save the Great Apes from extinction is today being launched by the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
The initiative, called the Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP), will
target key areas in Africa and South East Asia where humankind's
closest relatives are teetering on the brink as a result of war,
habitat destruction, capturing of live infants for sale and poaching
for trophies, souvenirs and their meat.
Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of UNEP, said:"A global effort
is now needed to combat this disaster. The clock is standing at
one minute to midnight for the Great Apes.
Some experts estimate that in as little as five to ten years they will
be extinct across most of their range. Local extinctions are
happening rapidly and each one is a loss to humanity, a loss to a
local community and a hole torn in the ecology of our planet. We
can no longer stand by and watch these wondrous creatures, some
of whom share over 98 per cent of the DNA found in humans, die
out".
He called on industry and business to back the initiative which is
being started with US dollars 150,000 from UNEP:" We are working
with wildlife groups and non-governmental organizations, several of
whom have been battling for years to stem the demise of the
gorilla, orangutan, chimpanzee and other great apes. But this
needs to be a global effort with many partners. Goodwill is not
enough. The urgency of the situation demands a higher level of
action. We need funding and support from all sectors of
society".
Robert Hepworth, Deputy Director of UNEP's Division of
Environmental Conventions and a biodiversity expert, added: "To
get the project really up and running will require well over US
dollars one million. But the world has a special duty to save the
Great Apes and by saving them we will be also saving a whole raft
of animal and plant species who exist in their remaining habitats".
Ian Redmond of the Ape Alliance based in Bristol, UK, said:
"During this year, thousands more orangutans have been killed or
driven from their forests by illegal loggers, thousands more gorillas,
chimpanzees and bonobos have been killed for bushmeat to feed
miners, loggers or the insatiable urban markets and thousands of
rangers and wardens have lacked the means to do their job to
protect even those apes living in national parks. New threats are
also emerging. In the Democratic Republic of Congo miners
seeking the highly prized mineral tantalite or coltan have been
pouring into the Biega National Park and Okapi Wildlife Reserve.
The mineral is used in mobile phones, aircraft engines and micro-
chips".
Holly Dublin of WWF said: "Field studies indicate that the eastern
lowland gorillas in the Highlands of Kahuzi-Biega park have halved
in recent years to between 110 and 130".
"UNEP's leadership offers the chance for governments, non
governmental organizations and individuals to act decisively and
together, now, to reverse this decline - not only for the apes' sake,
but for the sake of their human neighbours who benefit from their
presence,"Mr Redmond added.
GRASP, which will be working with groups including the Ape
Alliance, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the Born Free
Foundation, Fauna and Flora International, the Bushmeat Crisis
Task Force and the World Wide Fund for Nature, has initially
identified five potential programmes in need of urgent support. It
is
planned to extend the initiative to all of the 23 countries that still
have Great Apes.
In some cases projects will include giving rangers and wardens
state of the art communications equipment and vehicles. In some
places wildlife corridors linking fragmented habitats and isolated
populations are needed. Educating local people on the value of
Great Apes for eco-tourism and for protecting forests will also play
a key role, the report argues.
Heather Eves of the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force said:"Where
Great Ape tourism has been developed, for instance in Uganda's
Bwindi and Kibale Forest National Parks, they have become to
local communities an important source of revenue worth more alive
than dead. Meanwhile too few people, who depend on the forests
for fuel, building materials, medicinal plants and food, are aware
of
the role gorillas play in regenerating woodlands by dispersing
seeds and pruning trees. Along with elephants they are the
gardeners of the African and south East Asian forests".
Some Potential Projects Under GRASP's First Phase The Cross
River Gorillas of the Afi Mountains in Nigeria UNEP estimates that
only around 150 individuals are left making the Cross River Gorillas
the most critically endangered in the world. The Afi Mountain
population of Gorilla gorilla diehli numbers about 20.
Threats include over-logging of their forest home, encroaching
agriculture, hunting, and wild fires as a result of farmland
clearance. Efforts have been made to tackle the threats by groups
including Pandrillus, the Nigerian Cross River State Forestry
Commission and Fauna and Flora International.
Research indicates that a range of urgent actions are needed
including a community ranger programme to prosecute offenders
within the wildlife sanctuary; the development of fire management
strategies; schools education schemes and gorilla monitoring
programmes.
Chimpanzees in the Ivory Coast
There were once more than one million wild chimpanzees in Africa
at the beginning of the 1900s but at current rates of decline they
could be extinct by 2010 or 2020. Poaching, forest habitat
destruction, the bushmeat trade as well as disease is affecting the
animals.
The Ivory Coast, which has seven National Parks with
chimpanzees including Tai, Comoe, Banco Marahoue and Mont
Nimba, contains the largest population of chimps in West Africa
but most live in fragmented and dispersed populations that have
limited prospect of long term survival.
"The important role chimpanzees have in all traditional African
mythologies and beliefs of the forest regions, as well as the
genuine interest humans have in the chimpanzees, could be used
to benefit conservation measures," UNEP concludes.
A conservation action plan for each of the key sites is proposed
which would include improving protection for the remaining
chimpanzees, evaluating tree planting schemes to improve their
habitat, training three people from local communities to monitor
given sections of the park and the establishment of education
centers where adults and children are encouraged to actively
participate in conservation.
The Tanjung Putting National Park, Indonesia
Orangutans are in grave danger of extinction with viable populations
lost in as little as ten years. Their rainforests are being converted
to
agriculture, including palm oil plantations, and more recently are
threatened by illegal logging and gold mining in protected areas.
The Tanjung Putting park is in the province of Central Kalimantan
on the south coast of Borneo. The Orangutan Foundation's
Environmental Monitoring Programme employs local people on foot
and in boats to patrol designated areas to monitor illegal activities
and negotiate with illegal gold miners and loggers.
UNEP believes that the eco-tourism potential is significant and
would like to assist the park authorities in the design of an eco-
tourism development programme allied to more organized
enforcement.
Mr Hepworth said it was vital to galvanize all sections of the United
Nations in the effort as well as governments and the corporate
sector. The Environmental Management Group, recently launched
by the United Nations, should tackle the issue, he said.
"The World Health Organization should have an interest in the fate
of the Great Apes because of their importance along with primates
generally in medical research. Some scientists also believe that
AIDS may have been spread to humans through the eating of
bushmeat. Who knows what other deadly diseases may be
transmitted to humans if we continue to exploit the Great Apes for
food at current rates," said Mr. Hepworth.
Other United Nations bodies with a potential interest include United
Nations Development Programme in areas such as of eco-tourism
and the Food and
Agricultural Organization because of its interest in food, he suggested.
************************************************************
Bushmeat Hunting Threatens African Wildlife
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, May 22, 2001 (ENS) - Bushmeat has become the most
immediate threat to the future of wildlife populations in Africa, according
to the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force. The task force, a consortium of
conservation organizations and professionals, has just completed an
international meeting to develop an action plan for countering this
threat
to wildlife.
Illegal commercial hunting for the meat of wild animals, also
known as
bushmeat, has apparently already caused the extinction of the Miss
Waldron's Colobus Monkey, and many more animal species are being hunted
at
a rate that outpaces their ability to reproduce and replenish their
populations, says the Bushmeat Crisis Task Force (BCTF).
"Animals such as duikers, a small African antelope, as well as
other
species, are being hunted at an unsustainable rate and the risk of
local
and regional extinction of several species of African wildlife is very
real," said Dr. Michael Hutchins, chair of the BCTF Steering Committee
and
director of the Department of Conservation Science for the American
Zoo and
Aquarium Association (AZA).
The BCTF was formed in 1999 to conserve wildlife populations threatened
by
illegal commercial hunting of wildlife for sale as meat. Animals commonly
used as bushmeat include elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees and other
primates, forest antelopes or duikers, crocodiles, porcupines, bush
pigs,
cane rats, pangolins, monitor lizards and guinea fowl.
In addition to directly threatening wildlife in the Congo Basin,
"this
unmanaged and unsustainable hunting has the potential to result in
a human
tragedy of immense proportions," said Dr. Hutchins. "Some 60 percent
of the
protein needs of rural Africans are currently met by bushmeat and if
the
forests are emptied of their wildlife, then what will become of the
people?"
In an announcement Monday at the National Press Club in Washington
DC,
actress Stefanie Powers, president of the William Holden Wildlife
Foundation, highlighted the BCTF action plan.
"It is critical that Americans be involved in solving the bushmeat
crisis," said Powers. "There is no way to set a value on Africa's wildlife.
While it's impossible for most of us to picture the world without it,
we
are faced with that very real possibility."
"Beyond the beauty and intrinsic value of nature, we must acknowledge
that
we are dependent upon Africa's resources in many ways," added Powers.
"Some
are very visible, such as gold, diamonds and wood; other resources,
which
many people may not be aware of, are minerals used to make capacitors
in
cellular telephones."
The primary goals identified by the BCTF are the general education
of key
international decision makers about the problems of wildlife poaching.
The
group also supports its members' efforts in the areas of public education,
proposal development, catalyzing local action, disseminating information
and archiving.
In its new plan, the group details specific long term and short
term
actions to take place in both the United States and Africa.
Short term actions include forming hunter and market seller trade
associations; building the physical and technical capacity to control
trade
routes; brokering linkages among non-government organizations, governments
and private industry; public outreach and raising awareness; and developing
economic and protein alternatives to wildlife hunting.
Long term actions include new wildlife management policy development,
sustainable financing for conservation activities, public education,
and
protected area management and monitoring.
Specific steps included in the plan are assisting in the development
of
national wildlife policies, addressing issues related to food security
and
poverty reduction, and strengthening existing wildlife protection measures.
About 150 people representing more than 20 countries participated
in the
four day conference. Participants included biologists and educators
working
on the ground in Africa, representatives from the American Zoo and
Aquarium
Association, Conservation International, Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund
International, the Jane Goodall Institute and World Wildlife Fund-U.S.
The directors of four wildlife and protected areas departments
from the
central African countries most affected by the bushmeat crisis also
attended the conference.
"The bushmeat crisis is incredibly complex because so many different
factors are involved. Economics, population growth, governments and
policies, industry, and local tradition all affect the issue," said
Dr.
Hutchins. "Because it's so complicated, the BCTF knew from the start
that
no one organization could work to find solutions."
"This conference is a way not only to develop an action plan,
but also to
strengthen partnerships among African and non-African members to maximize
use of limited human and financial resources, to communicate the plan
and
encourage a wide diversity of potential partners to get involved,"
concluded Dr. Hutchins.
One of the ways in which the BCTF hopes to address the bushmeat
problem is
by raising public awareness of the issue. Beginning in 1997, Dr. Michael
Fay of the Wildlife Conservation Society walked more than 1,200 miles
across a corridor of forests in Congo and Gabon, Africa, surveying
trees,
wildlife and human impacts on uninhabited forests.
The trip was partially financed and documented by the National
Geographic
Society, and intended to rally the public around the plight of African
wildlife hunted for meat.
"One of our main objectives is to help facilitate support" for
the BCTF
plan, Dr. Fay said. "It needs to start being implemented immediately,
and
everyone affected by this issue needs to be part of the solution. I'm
optimistic that the African government and the United States government
are
working together with the conservation organizations to address the
many
factors contributing to the bushmeat issue."
More information is available at: http://www.bushmeat.org
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