GRASP Patron, Dr. Richard Leakey during the launch of GRASP
GRASP is one of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiatives
to save a specific endangered species or a certain group of species. In April 2000 during the CITES Conference of the Parties (COP)
at the UNEP Headquarters in Nairobi, it was put to Dr. Klaus Toepfer, the current
Executive Director of UNEP, that a UN Special Envoy for Great Apes might succeed
in raising awareness of the great ape problem. Dr. Toepfer immediately saw the
potential of such a plan and thus launched the Great Apes survival Project in
May 2001. UNESCO soon after joined UNEP to form a joint secretariat. Subsequently
in July 2001, the UNEP Special Envoys for Great Apes were appointed. These were
Dr. Russell Mittermeier, the President of Conservation International, Dr. Jane
Goodall, the pioneering chimpanzee expert, conservationist and founder of the
Jane Goodall Institutes; Dr. Toshisada Nishida, Japan's globally renowned primatologist
and founder of the GRASP Japan Committee; Dr. Richard Leakey, the celebrated
Kenyan authority on wildlife conservation and
Prof. Richard Wrangham , a Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University
. The UNEP Special Envoys have since
become GRASP Patrons to better stress their role. Since its inception, GRASP
has worked to bring together a diversity of stakeholders to address the crisis
facing the great apes and their habitat. Through high level technical visits,
field projects and National Great Ape Survival Plan (NGASP) policy making workshops
in African and Southeast Asian great ape range states, as well as political
lobbying and awareness raising in donor countries, GRASP has made a strong case
for the value it adds to great ape conservation efforts.
UNEP worked closely with UNESCO from the inception of GRASP, recognising the important role that the World Heritage
Conventions and the Biosphere reserves play in great ape conservation. UNEP
was delighted when UNESCO agreed to join UNEP to create a joint secretariat
of GRASP.
