Legal Protection of Great Apes & Gibbons: Country Profiles for 17 Range Countries.

By Rodriguez, M., M. Pascual, J. Wingard, N. Bhatri, A. Rydannykh, A. Russo, J. Janicki

Sharing up to 98% of human DNA, great apes are our closest relatives on earth. Human activities, however, pose serious challenges to their survival and threaten them with extinction. Expansion of the agricultural frontier into tropical forests, and poaching, driven by lucrative illegal markets for pets and bush meat, are the main forces cited for their population declines.1 Meanwhile, in some parts of the world, people are eager to have baby chimps at home; others attend great ape ‘boxing matches’; while others are looking for that ‘Instagram-able’ moment with a captive great ape. Regardless of the kinds of demand for great apes, we are losing thousands to illegal trade in these species every year. The exact number is unknown due to the illegal nature of the trade, but the UN Environment Programme estimates that no fewer than 3,000 great apes are taken from the wild each year. 2 Because of these high losses and continuing population declines, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists great apes and gibbons as either endangered or critically endangered on its Red List of Threatened Species. These categories denote species that are “very likely” to become extinct in the wild or face an “extreme high risk” of extinction, respectively. There are seven species of great apes (excluding humans), divided into four genera – gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos. They inhabit areas of central Africa and South East Asia, and tend to live in humid mountainous areas and forests. Gibbons, part of the family of lesser apes, comprise 16 species, all of which are native to the tropical and subtropical forests of South East Asia.

Missoula, MT: Legal Atlas, 2018. 191p.