The Edge of Oblivion: Conservationists Name 25 Primates about To Disappear
Biofuel plantations, logging and hunting are stealing habitats from our closest relatives, says report
Sri Lanka’s Horton Plains slender loris has been seen just four times since 1937. Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkey was not found in an exhaustive six-year study ending in 1999 and there have been no definite sightings since. Vietnam’s golden-headed langur and the Hainan gibbon in China both number in the dozens.
These are the primate species on the edge of oblivion and, according to a report commissioned by three leading conservation charities, scores of others of our closest relatives are poised to suffer the same fate. It names the top 25 species most in need of help but concludes that 114 primate species are also close to extinction.
The 25 species most at risk include two of our closest great ape cousins, the Cross River gorilla of Cameroon and Nigeria and the orang-utan from Sumatra. Miss Waldron’s colobus also makes it on to the list, although more by hope than expectation. Conservationists declared it officially extinct in 2000, but a photograph taken since then of a similar-looking creature has been tentatively identified by scientists.
The document was compiled by 60 leading primatologists from the world conservation union, the International Primatological Society and Conservation International. The list includes 11 species from Asia, seven from Africa, four from Madagascar and three from South America.
“You could fit all the surviving members of these 25 species in a single football stadium; that’s how few of them remain on Earth today,” said Russell Mittermeier, the president of Conservation International.
“The situation is worst in Asia, where tropical forest destruction and the hunting and trading of monkeys puts many species at terrible risk. Even newly discovered species are severely threatened from loss of habitat and could soon disappear.”
The report follows assessments in 2000, 2002 and 2004. “Overall the problems are increasing,” said Eckhard Heymann at the German Primate Centre in Goettingen, one of the report’s authors. Common problems are habitat loss due to logging for timber or oil and mineral extraction, plus bushmeat hunting. The two issues are related because roads cut through tropical forests for logging trucks help give hunters easier routes to wildlife. “Every additional access to remove areas increases the access to hunters,” Dr Heymann added.
Another problem is habitat destruction to make space for biofuel plantations such as oil palm. Developed economies such as the US and Europe are pledging to use more sustainable energy sources to combat climate change, but this is having a knock-on effect on tropical wildlife. “It is creating a huge market and now in several countries politicians are thinking of converting tropical forest areas to palm plantations,” he said.
This particularly affects orang-utan populations. Although they still number in the low thousands, they are disappearing as a faster rate than any other primate species.
Dr Heymann said there had been some successes since the previous report. The golden lion tamarin from eastern Brazil, for example, had benefited from a concerted conservation campaign which involved protecting fragments of forest where it lives and breeding it in captivity. “There are still not much more than 1,000 but they are stable and no longer declining,” said Dr Heymann. “The species is not yet safe but still it’s a success story.”
Most endangered
Madagascar
Greater bamboo lemur (Prolemur simus); White-collared lemur (Eulemur albocollaris); Sahamalaza Peninsula sportive lemur (Lepilemur sahamalazensis); Silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus)
Nigeria, Cameroon
Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli)
Ivory Coast, Ghana
Miss Waldron’s red colobus (Procolobus badius); Roloway monkey (Cercopithecus diana roloway)
Tanzania
Rondo dwarf galago (Galagoides rondoensis); Kipunji (Rungwecebus kipunji)
Kenya
Tana River red colobus (Procolobus rufomitratus)
Equatorial Guinea
Pennant’s red colobus (Procolobus pennantii pennantii) (Island of Bioko)
Colombia, Venezuela
Variegated spider monkey (Ateles hybridus)
Colombia, Ecuador
Brown-headed spider monkey (Ateles fusciceps)
Peru
Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey (Oreonax flavicauda)
Bangladesh, India, Burma
Western Hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock)
Sri Lanka
Horton Plains slender loris (Loris tardigradus nycticeboides); Western purple-faced langur (Semnopithecus vetulus nestor); Pig-tailed langur (Simias concolor)
Indonesia (Mentawai Islands)
Indonesia Pig-tailed langur (Simias concolor) (Mentawai Islands); Sumatran orang-utan (Pongo abelii) (Sumatra); Siau Island tarsier (Tarsius sp.)
Vietnam
Delacour’s langur (Trachypithecus delacouri); Golden-headed langur (Trachypithecus poliocephalus poliocephalus); Grey-shanked douc (Pygathrix cinerea); Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus)
China
Hainan black-crested gibbon (Nomascus hainanus) (Hainan Island)
To read a related article.
© 2007 The Guardian
Let them live.
Beware the Beast-man for he is the Devil’s pawn.
Alone among God’s primates he kills for sport, or lust or greed. Yea, he would murder his brother, to possess his brother’s land, let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours.
Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.
26th scroll of the Lawgiver
Planet of the Apes
Just this morning, during our morning jog — I was commenting to my wife that we are related to all we see. Here it is — and here they are — staring us right in the face. It is impossible for “them” to be on the list without “us” also having a number in the extinction line. We only pretend and try to lie that we are not in the grand circle of life. What folly. And how tragic that we are grand masters of human genocide and planetary life extinction. If only we could learn to live among and face the truth that we are here in part — because they are here.
Perhaps we are not evolved enough to truly recognize and live this truth.
They should have added the other endangered species (currently sitting in the whitehouse ) to the list.
This is tragic, sad and irreversible and all we can do is watch it happen. No amount of campaigns are gonna help. It needs direct action by Governments and the will to do it. Ofcourse we as a nation are incapable of anything other than hubris so the world should look elsewhere.
Jeffrey Courion writes:
Just this morning, during our morning jog — I was commenting to my wife that we are related to all we see. Here it is — and here they are — staring us right in the face. It is impossible for “them” to be on the list without “us” also having a number in the extinction line. We only pretend and try to lie that we are not in the grand circle of life. What folly. And how tragic that we are grand masters of human genocide and planetary life extinction. If only we could learn to live among and face the truth that we are here in part — because they are here.
Perhaps we are not evolved enough to truly recognize and live this truth.
*****************************
Perhaps? You’ve gotta’ be kidding, Jeffrey …
The majority of the 6.8 billion people on the planet still hold “killer” belief systems. Too many sects of the major religions hold to the awful … THIS WAY TO THE HIGHWAY TO HELL … WITH NO WAY OUT!
In the U.S. considerably more than 50 per cent of the populus accepts the biblical Adam and Eve story as accurate about how it all really began.
With that kind of critical thinking sitting atop a pile of thousands-of-years-B.C, best- explanation horse manure and our very own U.S. pResident a conveniently-timed [alleged] born-again believer who takes his instructions from God to kill all the “bad guys” in the name of “freedom,” with an enormous number of citizens Right behind him, … perhaps…”?
Across the world where boiling in oil for alleged transgressions and in other areas beheading and stoning and from the “civilized,”good guys” missiles, rockets, new hydrogen bunker-busting bombs to kill hundreds of thousands to millions at a clip;… and as for the animals … killing innumerable bears and sharks to keep healthy and become more potent by eating fins and paws, respectively, … perhaps … ?
Taser guns, infra-red microwave-style guns that fry the skin a little, tear gas and pepper sprays, old-fashioned clubs … to take care of protests and protestors that are alleged violent … perhaps … ?
Hey, we’re in a science fiction novel by L. Ron Hubbard, Ray Bradbury, et al. … only it’s our now and continuing over-the-horizon reality … [and I know, I know … it’s all an illusion anyway], so “perhaps” at this moment doesn’t cut it.
But not to be totally pessimistic … ya’ never know …
And regardless, I like your soul and soulfulness and your voice on this message board, Jeffrey …
From Tom Atlee, author of “The Tao of Democracy” and www.co-intelligence.org, comes a recommendation that may give Adam-and-Eve believers a new, acceptable slant on things:
>> There’s a new book just published that I honestly believe will shake up the deepest assumptions of millions of people.
Hardcover copies of Michael Dowd’s [Evolutionary Christian Evangelist] THANK GOD FOR EVOLUTION!, which has been endorsed by 5 Nobel Prize winners and 120 other scientific, religious, and cultural luminaries, are now available for $15
each (40% off retail price), when ordered directly from his publisher,
Council Oak Books: http://tinyurl.com/3yqrps <<
If this reads as good as it sounds for some gentle, religiously acceptable, reassessing, I shall buy as many as my meagre budget permits and discreetly leave them on pulpits in this bible-beltish area I live. Ya’ never know!
We need some SERIOUS LEADERSHIP here. There needs to be a joint news conference with every single person who is in a position of power to stand and be counted.
I just cannot understand for the life of me why these individuals do not mobilize and come to a consensus on the very most important issues of our time. Criminality at the highest levels is number one but no one seems to have the courage to stand up against these thugs.
Isn’t there someone we can draft to run for President who is honest, respected, famous and electable as an independent? Please! For God’s sake! Going to demonstrations obviously is not the answer. We need some serious freaking organizing here but it must be around a candidate who has the popularity to sweep the country by storm. And I’m not talking about Stephen Colbert (although I did put a Colbert 2008 sticker on my car yesterday as a joke).
People who read Commondreams are smart. There has to be SOMEONE we can draft who has the intelligence and charisma to make mincemeat out of all the other candidates to the point the polls would be so overwhelmingly he’d be unstoppable. Or she.
It is going to take this person to pull us out of this. Someone who isn’t afraid to tell the truth. Someone who isn’t afraid to demand a new investigation into 9/11. Someone who has the brains to know that waterboarding is torture and we must not tolerate it.
Who is this person?! Let’s throw out some names of potential candidates to be drafted!
I have my heart broken when I read stuff like that. My God, primates are the cousins of humans. Is this we how we treat our family?
Great post kelmer.
This is the result of a world run by plutocrats, businessmen, lawyers, preachers and economists, not by ecologists. Would you let the former run Kruger, Yellowstone, Glacier and other wildlife parks? Are humans part of the ecosystem or not?
The paucity of comments thus far speaks volumes in and of itself.
A post about man’s savagery upon his own will generate innumerable comments because man sees his own ego in the suffering he has has wrought upon his own species. Mankind needs to stop worshiping his own ego, reduce his numbers, and show compassion for the countless other species who suffer silently with no voice to cry out.
“Holy Earth. How can we heal you? We cover you like a blight…Strange birds of appetite…If I had a heart I’d cry.”
Joni Mitchell (c) 2007 Crazy Crow Music
Are Humans Smarter Than Yeast?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM1×4RljmnE
Homo sapiens may be genetically related to the great apes, but their social behavior is more akin to ebola…
Turn on your TV every evening, addict yourself to the corporate crapola, plug yourself into the creationist myth every Sunday, and help fuel this culture of contempt for the great evolution of life on planet Earth.
When plant and animal life have been destroyed in this world what will happen to mankind? Their destiny is our destiny. We destroy them we destroy ourselves.
One way I help is that I support Chimpanzee sanctuaries. Carole Noon heads a beautiful sanctuary in Florida known as Save the Chimps. She was featured in a PBS documentary called, “Chimpanzees, An Unnatural History”. When it comes to chimps, she’s a champ! Jane Goodall is also on the Board of Directors. She’s a champ as well!
http://www.savethechimps.org/
Also, if you love chimps, great apes and other primates, please boycott any advertiser or show that uses them for entertainment. Those that use primates for entertainment are chumps!!
Our primate relatives need your love. Thank you!
And there are 3 good christian families in a ten mile radius of me that have ten kids each.
Praise the lord and f**k the planet.
God just put all that shit here to amuse Adam and Eve a couple thousand years ago.
Whats really important is feeding the lies.
My husband is a primatologist.
He has worked for over 30 years trying to save habitat for these beautiful creatures so that they would have a chance to survive.
This is very sad news indeed.
Unfortunately the humans are primates also and we are facing the same problems.
I keep waiting for the tide to turn and for people to stand up raise their voices in a collective “We’re not going to take this anymore!”
We need to do something like refusing to buy gas or pay our utility bills for 3 months. This would get their attention…believe me! Pass the word!
And while you’re at it…Think about the sacrifices that our Forefathers made in order to found this country. It wasn’t and will not be easy but it is completely necessary at this point.
Michael Wilson wrote the Planet of the Apes.(See Kelmer post above).
Look up his filmogoraphy and view his films. He was branded a communist during the McCarthy hearings and was unable to work for years. I used to play cards with him and his wife.
Here’s what he wrote to his parents when he was being encouraged by them to co operate with the HUAC.
“Surely, whatever your own beliefs, you cannot see this as an alternative for a decent human being. To turn Judas, to sell my birthright for the sake of expediency of my career, or for the sake of your shame as to what people will think. It is not my career that is really at stake at all-it is my survival as a free writer.
If I have any worth as a writer it is because I have been a worthy citizen.”
And here’s what my husband said yesterday..
“Once upon a time in a galaxy not so far away people sacrificed their life support system for convenience”
And The Bible said, “Let man have dominion over all the Earth, even though he hasn’t got a shred of brains or respect for anything; for Progress is the mystical, tragic fruit of violent short-term selfishness….” Look it up! (Don’t look it up.)
Oh yeah?… and guess what?… we’re next!
When we were kids we were often admonished by parents not to “go ape” which we kids knew to mean don’t break anything, don’t trash anything. Naturally, after this article I’ll warn my own kids not to “go human.”
unfortunatly, we have to save this planet before we can save anything else. we can’t save us from us unless we eliminate us. we are our own worst enemy.
Hi,
i have to agree with Vanishing Earth - the stories on CD that address humans’ destruction of the life of the Earth typically get far fewer posts here than the more purely political and human-centered stories do.
In some ways this is understandable: imagining we can do something about the political crisis is perhaps easier than imagining we can do something about the ecological crisis.
Also, we might imagine that by doing something about the political crisis we are laying the necessary groundwork for addressing the ecological crisis.
Of course, the multiple crises are all intertwined, and again refer back to Vanishing Earth’s analysis - the human ego is at the center of the crises.
And, the depth and immensity of the crises require massive and immediate changes by humans. They truly are “crises” in the most immediate sense of the word. No single hero can “save” us or the Earth. We need a gigantic “tipping point” in worldwide human consciousness and behavior - actually we needed it about forty years ago.
Extremely sadly, i don’t see much evidence of this. i maintain a pretty fat ego myself, and i still seem to think humans are pretty important. How can we get over ourselves and begin living in harmony with each other and the Earth, small in this big mysterious cosmos?
At least can we stop industrializing the biosphere, and institute principles of natural design in everything we build? Extremely sadly, it doesn’t look promising.
Love,
webwalk
And thanks Kelmer for the Planet of the Apes quote.
Guess who might be #26, or #30. If we destroy Nature’s diversity, we destroy ourselves. It is now a certainty that Man, through his own Greed, and self-centeredness has created his own fate. Big families, irregardless of food supplies; greedy BIG businesses; corrupt governments; all centered with the theme of “I”. What will become of “I”, when they are the only ones left on Earth. Stockpiled foods will run-out. No one is left to kiss their ass and produce for them. Seems like a bunch of idiots left to run nothing. My vision of the 2010 to 2030s culture.
What is really sad is, the animal kingdom is so much far superior to humans. Their compassion, self preservation for the ‘Family’, community involvement in their own preservation. For the community! Not for ‘themself’.
Killing off the primate family. Destroying the survivability of the magnificent polar bears.
The other night when there was a meteor shower, I thought what would it be like if a meteor hit George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was notified. And a few minutes later, Cheney was hit by another meteor.
That’s my idea of poetic justice.
The “Smirking Chimp” is one hideous and amoral mutation that should disappear !
Thanks webwalk for elaborating more on what I had to say. The solution begins primarily with reducing our numbers WORLDWIDE which will immediately ameliorate the other man-made problems, the symptoms of which have been growing ever more numerous. If the totality of the ecosystems of the Earth was to visit a doctor it would be placed in the hospital on life support. The backfiring or “blowback” of our actions, each of which carry a consequence, such as toxification of the environment, resource depletion, and species decimation to name but a few, are so numerous I think you’d have to be irrational to believe they won’t eventually lead to the decline and likely extinction of our own species.
Because we chose to eat our closest relatives, the primates, who share so much of our DNA, the HIV virus was able to jump species (it’s known as SIV, S for Simian in the great apes) and has become the plague that has currently killed over 25 million humans worldwide but is relatively innocuous in the African ape population (however quite deadly when introduced to Asian apes). If not for the “advances” of mankind, the availability of (formerly) cheap fossil fuels which permitted the construction and propulsion of giant time travel machines which defy the rule of gravity aka jet travel, this would most likely still be a relatively small, local, limited problem of a population of humans eating “bushmeat”. Instead, it is a global pandemic, and is an example of unintended blowback of our assault on nature. It has been partially controlled, not cured, in the wealthiest countries also due to (formerly) cheap fossil fuels which have enabled Big Pharma to produce pharmaceuticals which massively lower the levels of the virus in the human body, thus prolonging life and reducing infectivity, albeit at the expense of fairly toxic side effects.
Ebola, OTOH, also acquired from apes by humans from the consumption of locally prized bushmeat, is deadly both to the ape population in Africa and humans alike from my understanding with no known treatment.
Ape populations are susceptible to human viruses as well because of their similar genome and those few people that work to help these primates often have to take measures to prevent infecting them.
I was watching an Animal Planet documentary about the alarming declining numbers of primates and Jane Goodall’s seminal work with them. Interestingly, she was the one who discovered that chimpanzees, far from being the frugivores (fruit-eating) they were assumed to be like most primates, were in fact omnivores and scavenged and hunted other apes for meat. And like Homo sapiens, are intelligent, capable crying and displaying happiness, and make crude tools which they use to hunt. Perhaps even more telling, they are also capable of murder and war (on other tribes of chimpanzees).
I don’t pretend to know the answers. I am simply an observer, a messenger, but the one message that I do know is there are many other sentient living creatures out there that deserve our recognition and respect and we need to get a grip and stop proliferating and thus further exploiting the planet now. I don’t hold out much hope that anything meaningful can be done on a global scale when we can’t even tackle the problem on a national scale. And no hero is going to be elected or come along and solve the problems alone, as we have been conditioned to believe in our escapist entertainment, our number one export to the world.
BTW I have “Planet of the Apes” at home now. I plan to watch the entire series, having watched a couple of them when I was a kid.
The global crisis of the twenty-first century is upon us. The extinctions of our neighbors in the community of life–especially these primates–is saddening beyond what I can say in words.
I was at the Wellington New Zealand zoo in the 1990s. There was big outdoor cage with a gibbon in it. He was reaching through he cage for some leaves off of a tree. Some 10 year-old boy and I saw him. I took the liberty of handing the gibbon some leaves he was reaching for, while the young boy watched. We were a foot away from the gibbon. He reached his hand towards me, as if to hold mine or shake it. I put mine out. He held it. But what got me is that he looked into my eyes. And kept doing so. It was a bonding experience of sorts. I think I was the most affected, as was, the 10 year-old boy who witnessed the encounter. Then the kid’s mom yelled for him and he left. I hung around for a while and eventually left. I felt like I had a new friend.
This mass extinction is our doing. The good news about the megaproblem is that whole groups of scientists are working overtime to understand its dimensions.
I just came across the GEO-4 report that looks the global crisis and our prospects comprehensively.
I am quite familiar with all of the recent releases of the IPCC reports released in a series every five years. At 572 pages, the GEO-4 report looks stunningly good. I just scrutinized Chapter 9 on future scenarios, including extinctions. It is fantastic, and scary.
And the GEO-4 endeavor is an amazing example of the kind of collaboration that could possibly save civilization and provide our species a future worth living. If we understand the problem and visualize scenarios for solving it, maybe humanity will rise to the occasion. After all, most of our 6.6+ billion people care about their grandchildren, and nature, and our neighbors in the community of life.
Here is the BBC link to the GEO-4 document itself:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_10_2007_un.pdf
and the associated BBC summary article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7060072.stm
I’d prefer Ebola to another Republican in the White House.
WE ALREADY KILL OVER ONE BILLION ANIMALS EVERY SINGLE DAY for 6.8 billion people to eat. WE ALREADY POLLUTE TENS OF BILLIONS OF GALLONS OF FRESH WATER EVERY SINGLE DAY for people to farm with, manufacture with, drink, and excrete in. WE ALREADY BURN TEN THOUSAND BARRELS OF OIL EVERY SINGLE SECOND for humans to have transportation and electricity. And these figures are AS OF NOW, when over half the humans alive all together have a Total Net Worth of Nothing, no money power. When this half wants the American life, as well as the rest of the world not in America, we will need TWENTY or so more Earths to provide this lifestyle to them. I don’t think we can conjure them up.
The first Earth Day over 30 years ago forewarned of the situation we are in now. However since then, sadly, huumans have acted, and Republican humans in particular (as though Republicanism is a mental illness filled with delusion about conquering nature, and so-called free markets, and the wonderfulness of being completely selfish, and the goodness of war), like they were lemmings (expanding until the resources run out and then a mad dash over the cliff for all) and not intelligent creatures. We have bred and bred, encouraged by primitive religous thinking that ‘god’ wants breeders (from the days when ‘god’ killed over half the children born and killed most humans by age 40 - Methuselah, of 900 MOONS old was something rare), and ‘god’ would take care of things. Now, we are overpopulated, and only human death on a horrendous scale will right the balance. As an example, Mexico’s population explosion has come to haunt the U.S. with tens of millions of illegal crossers trying to make it to a liveable place, and another 50 million saying they would come if the border were opened… but there is no other planet to run to for earthlings.
I weep for all earthlings, be they plant, animal, or human. There is a hard rain coming in this generation for all because humans are not acting rationally. A child for religion is ‘another soldier’ for their cause, but I say a chlid should be nurtured and cared for, and that is why they should be fewer and more precious. And the same goes for all people, everyone should be nurtured and cared for as we are all just children of a few orbits around the Sun.
WE MUST RECOGNIZE THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - OVERPOPULATION - and any ‘religion’ that does not recongnize that birth control and, sadly, abortion are tools for a viable planet must be seen to be agents of darkness. Read “COLLAPSE” by Jared Diamond about how islanders kept their population at viable levels. We are on Island Earth and need the same mindset as these islanders. Now ‘god’ will have to step in and start wiping out humans by the Billion, as ‘god’ aready aborts half of all fetuses by miscarriage now. Will this be the End of Life on Earth? If we do not find the communal mind to solve overpopulation and resource depletion - and destroy the primitive lizard-brain tribal mind (see Republicans, among others) and the undue worship of so-called money (see Republicans, mainly, and criminals), I fear the future for everyone.
“OVERPOPULATION”
Wrong. Its OVER_CONSUMPTION and the gigantic carbon footprint by the West thats the problem.
gyptian
Ask China (certainly not included in your “West”) if they would rather have today 3 billion people to provide for, and what that would mean to the world - mega-pollution and resource war on a massive scale. China mandated poulation control decades ago in foresight. It still may not be enough. Your self-evident hatred of “the West” and its high standard of life blinds you to the fact that there is finally just so much each nation can provide its people. And most people want to and should be able to live in much the same way, with homes, schools, health, peace and happiness for themselves and their children. Yes the West can and must make changes in its way of life, but the positive effects of such chages can be wiped out by runaway population growth, making it impossible to bring up living standards for all people too, while maintaining a healthy world… or are you an advocate of going back to the caves and using slaves rather than technology and voodoo rather than medicine? In such a situation it would soon become clear just how naturally overpopulated the world has become, as nature and tribe war would soon clear off billions of people (population growth was virtually flatlined for millenia, and exploded in the twentieth century due solely to new sciences, medicines and technologies.) I am sorry, read the Diamond book, read “THE LONG EMERGENCY” and it will be evident to a sane person that you harbor the delusions of which I spoke, that you are wrong and, in fact, espouse a belief that is a true danger to all life on Earth. There are many problems and they must all be addressed, problems such as Global Warming, which again is made worse by the sheer number of sources of carbon burning. And yes Western overconsumption is a problem, but a far larger and interconnected one is overpopulation. Learn, if you can, from the lemmings.