Ian Redmond
Orphan chimpanzees cling to one another for comfort. Lwiro, DRC.
The GRASP Partnership has, as an immediate challenge, to lift the threat of imminent extinction facing most populations of great apes. Its mission is to work as a coherent partnership to conserve in their natural habitats wherever they exist wild populations of every kind of great ape and to make sure that where apes and people interact, their interactions are mutually positive and sustainable. GRASP also seeks to exemplify and relieve the threats faced by other kinds of animals, birds and plants sharing the forests where apes survive and to illustrate what can be achieved through a genuine partnership between all stakeholders in fragile ecosystems.
Objectives
Patrick Van Klaveren
Gorilla pastel
To achieve its goal, the GRASP Partnership will have the objectives set out below, based on the Global Strategy for the Survival of Great Apes, which was adopted at the Intergovernmental Meeting on Great Apes and the Great Apes Survival Project, held in Kinshasa from 5 to 9 September 2005.
The immediate objectives of the GRASP Partnership shall be:
To promote the Global Strategy for the Survival of Great Apes and Their Habitat;
To determine the potential of sites, monitor populations of great apes and establish a database of great ape population information;
To collate and analyse existing projects and initiatives at different levels, in order to identify gaps and set priorities in action and to encourage coordination and cooperation;
To encourage range States to prepare and implement national action plans for the survival of great ape populations and their habitat and ensure that they have the necessary resources to do so;
To prioritize the use of resources for optimum effectiveness and identify funding areas that are currently neglected and underfunded;
To promote and enforce a legal framework for the survival of great apes and their habitat in the countries concerned;
To identify and support income-generating initiatives for the benefit of communities living in and around great ape habitat and protected areas, with due consideration for indigenous communities and to ensure, where it becomes imperative to resettle indigenous people in conformity with United Nations guidelines, that compensation is paid with international support;
To educate and raise awareness among local populations;
To help generate new and additional funds for the survival of great apes and their habitat and to ensure that the international community in the widest sense (donor States, international organizations and institutions, non-governmental organizations and representatives of private business and industry) provides effective and coherent support to the efforts being made by the great ape range States.
The Partnership's longer-term objectives shall be:
To carry out scientific research to generate information necessary for the survival of great apes and their habitat and to disseminate such information in an easy and accessible manner;
To encourage countries to enter into or enforce relevant conventions and agreements for the conservation of great apes and elimination of their illegal trade;
To work with relevant international networks of intelligence on great apes aimed at eliminating illegal transboundary traffic;
To promote the development and transfer among range States, partners and other interested parties of appropriate technologies, training programmes and best practices for planning, finance, monitoring and delivery of outcomes;
To promote the inclusion of information highlighting the importance of great apes and their habitats in national education curricula and the dissemination of such information through the media .
