The World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation was launched by Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of UNEP on September 1, 2005, at the Zoological Society of London, Regents Park, London, with presentations by Lera Miles, UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, co-editor of the Atlas, Glyn Davies, Director of Conservation Programmes, Zoological Society of London and Mark Leighton, Chair, GRASP Interim Scientific Commission. A second launch was done on 9 th September 2005 in Kinshasa , Democratic Republic of the Congo, at the Intergovernmental Meeting on Great Apes and First GRASP Council Meeting.

The UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation provides a comprehensive review of what is currently known about the great apes, including a description of their ecology, distribution and key threats that each great ape species faces. The Atlas includes an assessment of the current status of great ape species in each of the countries where they are found, together with an overview of current conservation action and priorities, illustrated with maps. The World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation also highlights the importance of great apes to humans. The Atlas will be of interest to the general public, as well as conservation groups, non-governmental organizations, governments, intergovernmental organisations, educators and students. The publication raises the international profile of great ape conservation efforts, and helps to guide future action.

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The Great Apes - The Road Ahead (2002):

This report assesses the impact of infrastructural development on great ape populations, using the GLOBIO modelling approach. GLOBIO is a multivariable special model, which estimates the extent of land area with reduced abundance and diversity of living organisms, as a result of infrastructural development. The model can be used to develop scenarios of possible future impacts, based on the current rates of infrastructural development. Results of the GLOBIO analyses indicate that more than 70% of the habitat of each of the African great ape species has been negatively affected by infrastructural development. For orangutan, the corresponding figure is 64%. ...More