Mother Gorilla comforting Child

GRASP is a World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Type II Partnership comprised of great ape range states and donor governments, the biodiversity-related Multilateral Environmental Agreements, United Nations institutions, international and national great ape conservation non- governmental organizations, the global great ape scientific community and private sector organizations. Since its inception, the GRASP Partnership has seen a tremendous increase in the number of organizations wishing to join this international initiative and help save the great apes and the habitat on which they depend.

"UNEP's initiative in creating GRASP offers an excellent opportunity to bring together the major players in the field of conservation, access expertise and funding support, and use already existing networks with Governments, especially in Africa and Asia, to meaningfully react to the very real concern for the future of great apes".
(Mr. Willem Wijnstekers, Secretary General, CITES).

Each GRASP Partner has specific institutional capacity, resources and expertise that it brings to great ape conservation and facilitating communication and cooperation to ensure the optimal use of these attributes is thus of critical importance to the GRASP Partnership. GRASP Partners are selected according to a set of GRASP Partnership Admission Criteria .The GRASP Executive Committee determines admissions into the Partnership on a rolling basis throughout the year.

Categories of Partners

The GRASP Partnership comprises full partners and supporting partners.
Full partners fall into the following categories:

• Great ape range States;
  
  
• Non-great ape range States that directly or indirectly support or participate significantly in programmes for the conservation of great apes and their habitat;
  
  
• UNEP and UNESCO, which together are the sponsoring agencies;
  
  
• Relevant biodiversity and conservation-related multilateral environmental agreements and relevant international organizations and institutions;
  
  
• Non-governmental organizations with a significant involvement in great ape conservation.

Supporting partners fall into the following categories:

• Non-range States, other than those who are eligible to be full partners as above;
  
  
• Individuals, including GRASP patrons;

• Appropriate private businesses, representatives of industry and scientific, academic and other organizations with an interest in supporting or participating in great ape conservation programmes through GRASP.

The GRASP Executive Committee may confer supporting partner status on any individual who has rendered or is rendering outstanding service in the field of conservation of great apes and their habitat.