Deforestation is the main reason that scientists like Russ Mittermeier, chairman of the World Conservation Union’s Primate Specialist Group, estimate 25 percent of primates worldwide could disappear before 2030. The illegal bushmeat trade is also a major threat. People have hunted wildlife for millenniums, but logging roads are opening access to huge tracts of once pristine forest. Poor rural dwellers have begun hunting endangered animals–many of which are legally protected–to supply protein and cash. The Bushmeat Crisis Task Force estimates that the trade is worth more than $1 billion a year in West and central Africa, where hunters earn $300 to $1,000 a year–much more than a typical household’s annual income. And officials often take bribes rather than prosecute hunters.
That’s especially alarming for gorillas and bonobos in central Africa, who are fighting for survival in the midst of a violent human conflict. Bonobos, which are related to chimpanzees, live only in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their habitat lies directly on the front lines of the war. Jo Thompson, director of the Lukuru Wildlife Project, says bonobos could die out in the next five to 10 years without help. The war doesn’t have to spell the end for primates. The International Gorilla Conservation Program provides funds and supplies for parks in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo that are home to the last mountain gorillas on earth. IGCP director Annette Lanjouw says her group has paid park workers’ salaries, supplied bulletproof vests and trained staff to protect themselves. And the IGCP has worked to spread tourism profits to people in local villages. Thanks to these efforts, mountain gorillas are holding steady. Lanjouw says her group has succeeded partly because central African governments know gorillas attract tourists, who are crucial for the economy: “Gorillas are important for everyone’s survival,” she says.
Biologists think it’s not too late to bring primates back from the brink. They say people can help primates–and all forest creatures–by creating more parks and funding understaffed ones. That may be the only way to keep the world’s forests echoing with boisterous noise for centuries to come.
