Ebola virus

Ebola is the common term for a virus which first hits humans. At the beginning the virus was transmitted by contacts between humans and apes dead bodies.
Nevertheless for ten years researchers found several cases in Great apes.
Indeed the result of this case study was more than a half of great apes population decimated.

For example in Gabon, country which provides shelter for 80% of gorilla's population, almost 90% of nests disappeared since 1983.

In fact most of cases are detected on the edge of urbans areas , where forest can be reached by humans and consequently where roads can be built.

Today Ebola is an extensive threat for apes survival, on equal footing with poaching or deforestation.

Jane Goodall Institute

Jane Goodall is one of the most important person known for her works concerning chimpanzee's protection.Antropologist, ethologist and primatologist, Jane Goodall founded the "jane goodall institute" in 1977 after having studied chimpanzee in Gombe Stream National Park (Tanzania) in 1960.

The institute is not only focused on chimpanzee, but it deals with the human communities too. Five countries (Gabon, Rep.of Congo, Ouganda, Tanzania, South Africa) are concerned, in which the institute has numerous projects including the population. These communities are directly concerned about chimpanzee because of their geographical location. By giving them other jobs' alternatives, these people wouldn't capture or kill monkeys anymore to sell them for having more money. On another hand, these communities are suffering from poverty and from the destruction of their own habitat, that's why Jane Goodall Institute is also involved in reforestation and in developpement of sustainable means to reduce environment's damages. Training course about agriculture, developpment and distribution of seedling, sanitization of water...every means is used to enable the population to get rid of their misery and improve their way of life.

We invite you to have a look at their website, which is clearly more complete than this article :

english: http://www.janegoodall.org/default.asp

french: http://www.janegoodall.fr/

Baby Monkey Business

In addition to hunting and poaching, there is a business of baby monkeys. Young animals are not caught to be eaten but to be sold on markets. The babies monkeys are sold as "pet" but the great apes are not suited to this kind of life. You should know, that to capture a baby, it's often his entire family who is decimated. Indeed, adults protect their offspring and hinder the capture of babies, so they are shot. Unfortunately, separated from their mothers, their chances of survival are very low because they are extremely fragile, beaten and injured in the capture, isolated from their peers, without adequate food .. Growing up, the monkey becomes less and less "interesting" and docile. It can becomes dangerous so he is destroyed or locked in a cage to be exhibited ...

The monkey trade is a very lucrative and flourishing business between several countries, like Morocco, Malaysia, Cameroon, and Europe. Now you can even buy monkeys on the internet.

You can see the horror on this link :

http://www.aza.fr/asp/animaux/liste.asp?idrubrique=23&iddep=

Poaching and hunting

Thanks to deforestation, new roads are built to a better access in forests and the poachers can go near animals more easily. They stand in the forest during some weeks and fill their trucks with many corpses of great apes. All animals are removed, without any distinction between species endangered or not. The meat will be sold on markets and in restaurants. Even if Europe banned the business of Great Apes, in some restaurants, you can eat, with a special order, monkey meat.
Gorillas and chimpanzees are killed everyday in the central and Western Congo basin and in the central Africa for bushmeat. It is estimated that in Congo, 5 million of tonnes of meat of the great apes is consumed per year.

Long time ago, people killed monkeys to eat them, it was not an important threat because only the inhabitants of small villages hunted. Today, this situation has changed and the business of great apes brings in a lot of money. Skins, skulls are sold too. Hands end like ashtrays.
Monkeys are sold alive too. They go in zoos, animal's shops and at private individual. Poachers capture baby monkeys, after killing their families, and they are sold like pets.

One hundred and fourteen of the 394 primate species, or 29%, are threatened with global extinction and were placed on the IUCN Red List. If the slaughter continues at its current pace, the Great Apes will be extinct in about thirty years.

Great apes look like humans. They are intelligent and we share with chimpanzees, 98% of our genetic heritage. How can we eat them .. ??

Diane Fossey

Her life and her engagment for saving the mountain gorilla from extinction. Diane Fossey was an American zoologist who first studied in the University of California as a veterinary. One day after seeing photographs from a friend who had been in Africa, she discovered a really fascination about this large country. Thats how she made her first trip in Tanzania in 1963. There, she met M and Ms Leakey who worked at a hominid fossil area. In 1967, she founded the Karisoke Research Center in the Virunga mountains ,Rwanda. There, she achieved to go near gorillas in their natural environment and was accepted by the dominant male. She created close ties with all the community. In january 1970 Bob Campbell, the National Geographic Magazine photographer, involved by Diane Fossey determination, took photos showing her surrounded by gorillas. Thanks to this article Diane became an international celebrity. Her advertisement is clear : saving the mountain gorilla from extinction, as well as convincing the general public that gorillas are not as bad as they are sometimes depicted in movies and books.

Poaching:
Nevertheless during the civil war in the unsafe montains, gorillas suffered poaching to be sent in zoos in return for money. Diane lost about 10 gorillas of the community. In 1985 she was brutally murdered in the bedroom of her cabin, probably by poachers who desapproved her generous commitment. Diane Fossey involvment cost her the life.

Her work is somewhat similar to Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees. She related her unique experience in the form of memoirs, which were adapted for the cinema, under the title of: "gorillas in the mist".

Palm oil

Palm oil is used as a bio fuel which suggests renewable energy. Don't drop off in hearing those words! They aren't as good as they look like.

Indonesia and Malaysia provide 83 per cent of palm oil, and these countries represent just as well the Orangutan's living place. Accordind to WWF, there are 11 milion hectars of oil palm plantations on earth including 6 milion hectars in Indonesia. The consequence of the palm oil's production is destruction of forests, forest fires and obviously the Orangutan's disappearance. This bio fuel leads to an ecological desaster because the palm oil replaces little by little the forest where fauna and flora is destroyed. The orangutan fleeing fires are found in a appaling state (suffering from burn, dehydration, respiratory disease and they have sometimes some injuries inflected by villagers.)

Palm oil is in everyday use into, for example, household products, cosmetics or food. Take a look in your closet! What is more, palm oil gives apparently heart disease...so if you wouldn't stop palm oil for saving orangutan, stop if for yourself!

sources: http://redapes.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/bospalm_oil_report.pdf -

becareful you can view some shocking pictures, so i suggest you to read only the first page

Deforestation

The destruction of Great Apes natural habitat is the main reason of their disappearance. According to FAO, 13 milions of forest's hectars are decimating on earth per year including 2 milions hectars in Indonesia, and 90 per cent of Orangutan's habitats are already destroyed.
Let's not underestimate the seriousness of the situation!

As consumers, WE are involved in this irresponsible destruction. There is an obvious connection between your daily cosumption and deforestation. The production of paper, the production of palm oil and the conversion of forest into croplands have inevitably some irreversible consequences on fauna and flora in which we are tacking part.
This article is not supposed to lecture you but it aims at raise awareness of this worlwide issue.

I talked earlier about the gravity of Orangutan's situation and sure enough he is the most threatened Great Ape. According to various reports (such as UNESCO's one), in Indonesia 98 per cent of tropical forest is about to disappear by 2012. In the meantime, to be able to satisfy wood market request, the forest industry is illegaly cutting down the forest. Worst of all, woodcutters don't hesitate to get into national park to cut down even more trees. Europe, Asia and North America are the main wood market coming from Indonesia.

Biodiversity and local community are the first victims of this disaster in which multinationals are the only one to take advantage.

What are we supposed to do? Obviously, the states concerned by this issue should be the first to find out the way to end it. Among some corruptions and weakness from the state in which we add the influence of multinationals, the consumer seems to measure up. By giving up to buy non certified wood, you fulfill your duty as a world citizen!

source: http://ecologicalproblems.blogspot.com/2008/11/indonesia-major-deforestation-problem.html - 89k -