Structure

The GRASP scientific commission was established in August 2007 and comprises eleven members with substantial experience in the science and conservation of great apes. They were nominated as follows:

Serge Wich -Scientific Commission Chair

• Six members selected by the Species Survival Commission of the World Conservation Union (IUCN);
• One was nominated by the current president of the International Primatological Society (IPS);
• Four members, one from each sub region namely South East Asia, West Africa, Central Africa and East Africa, chosen by the GRASP Executive Committee in consultation with the IPS president.

Their Terms of Reference as agreed at the Executive Committee meeting held in May 2007 include:

• Providing scientifically sound advice to the GRASP Partnership members, including the Secretariat, range states and other agencies;
• Evaluating project proposals on behalf of the GRASP Secretariat and Executive Committee;
• Suggesting and evaluating activities of the Technical Support Team
  (TST);
• Drafting and commenting on official GRASP Partnership literature, reports and other documents;
• Providing advice on the GRASP Partnership’s strategic goals, objectives and activities to achieve them;
• Providing scientific advice on the design and implementation of major program activities, and the sites at which they will be conducted; these may relate to climate change, biofuels, landscape level planning, ecosystem services, bush meat, disease and other issues;
• Advising on science priorities to support the implementation of the Kinshasa Declaration on Great Apes and the GRASP Programme of Action

For more details, see the complete terms of reference [English][Français] of the Scientific Commision and the rules [English][Français] for the organization and management of the GRASP Partnership

Activities of the Scientific Commission

Serge Wich

Scientific Commission Chair

Serge Wich received his MSc. in Animal Behaviour in 1995 at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, for which he conducted a study on food competition in wild Sumatran orangutans. In 2002, he received his PhD, also from Utrecht University, for a study on the structure and function of male Thomas langur long-distance vocalizations.
Between 1997 and 2003 he conducted several large-scale surveys on Sumatra to determine the distribution of wild orangutans and also studied ecological factors determining orangutan density.In 2003, he started as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Utrecht University to study 'cultural behavior' of orangutans in two orangutan pop ulations, one on Sumatra and one on Borneo.
Serge is a visiting scientist at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, from where he co-manages the orangutan research at the Ketambe Research Station in Sumatra and studies the orangutans and bonobos at Great Ape Trust.

Sri Suci Utami Atmoko

Sri Suci Utami Atmoko received her PhD in socio-ecology from the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, in 2000. Sri Suci has investigated a number of socio-ecological questions in orangutans and gibbons for various sites in Sumatra and Borneo.
She is currently working as a Research Associate and Lecturer in the Faculty of Biology at the Universitas Nasional in Jakarta. She has previously worked as the Southeast Asia Regional representative for the Orangutan Conservancy and is currently a member of the IUCN-SSC Primate Specialist Group.

Christophe Boesch

Christophe Boesch received his PhD in Ethology and Wildlife from the University of Zurich in Switzerland in 1984, and was subsequently a postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Zurich in the Department of Ethology until 1990. He had undertaken long-term studies of the wild chimpanzees in the Taï National Park in Côte-d’Ivoire, and cognitive capacities.
Christophe is the founder and president of the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation, Honorary Professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Leipzig since 1999, and Director of the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany since 1997.
He is a member of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, and executive committee member of the Section of the Great Apes (SGA). He served as co-Chairman of the GRASP Interim Scientific Committee.

Tatyana Humle

Tatyana Humle received her PhD from the University of Stirling, UK, where she continues to hold an honorary research fellow position. She was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Madison, U.S.A. She is currently a visiting associate professor at the Primate Research Institute, University of Kyoto, Japan. The main focus of her research has been to investigate the respective contributions of the environment, and social and individual learning on the acquisition of foraging skills among immature primates from a cultural and developmental perspective. Her research interests also include human and great ape co-existence, and behavioral and ecological predictors of success of chimpanzee reintroduction projects. Since 1995, she has been studying wild chimpanzees at Bossou and Nimba in Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa. She is an active member of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group Section on Great Apes. She co-authored the chimpanzee action plan for Guinea and participated in the elaboration of the regional action plan for chimpanzees in West Africa.

Inza Koné

Inza Koné holds a PhD in Animal Ecology from the University of Cocody in Abidjan, Côte-d’Ivoire. Inza is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department for Ecology, Physiology and Ethology at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. In September 2007 he will resume his former positions as assistant/lecturer at the University of Cocody and as Research Associate at the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifique in Abidjan. He is also the Coordinator of the CEPA program (Conservation des Espèces et Populations Animales) in Côte-d’Ivoire within the framework of the West African Primates Conservation Action. During the difficult time of the reconciliation process in Côte d´Ivoire, Inza was in charge of coordinating with colleagues on a conservation and reconciliation project of the Centre Suisse and DEZA, the Swiss Development Agency. For his work, he has received the Martha J. Galante Conservation Award from the International Primatological Society and an award from WWF and Centre Suisse for North-South Partnership in Research.

Mark Leighton

Mark Leighton received his PhD in Biological Ecology from the University of California, Davis, USA in 1982, and then was an NSF-NATO postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University. He joined the faculty in Biological Anthropology at Harvard University in ecology and rainforest conservation & management in the Harvard Extension School. He has served as Executive Director of the Great Apes World Heritage Species Project for the last two years. His basic and applied research has been focused on the rainforests of Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan) and in 1984 he founded the Cabang Panti Research Station in Gunung Palung National Park. For many years he has directed various conservation projects in collaboration with Indonesia's Ministry of Forestry, and has been involved in several international public policy initiatives. Applied research interests include community conservation forestry models, certified forestry and the development of protocols for assessing High Conservation Value Forests (HCVF) in tropical landscapes. He recently served as co-Chairman of the GRASP Interim Scientific Commission, directing projects to identify great ape priority populations, protection of HCVF from oil palm and other plantation conversion, and other GRASP initiatives.

Fiona Maisels

Fiona Maisels is the Monitoring Coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s field programs in Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Gabon. She received her PhD in 1989 from Edinburgh University, UK. Fiona has 20 years experience working in the forested tropics, mostly in Central African protected areas. Her experience covers research into, and implementation of, survey methodologies, wildlife abundance and distribution, plant-animal relationships, protected area management-focused activities, and training of wildlife biologists. She is a member of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group (2005-2008) and also occasionally contributes to other IUCN/SSC specialist groups, including those for elephants and birds.

Erik Meijaard

Erik Meijaard is Senior Science Advisor to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) - Indonesia's Tropical Forest Initiative and works as the Kalimantan coordinator for the USAID-funded Orangutan Conservation Services Program. Erik holds a MSc in Tropical Ecology and a PhD in Biological Anthropology. He has been involved in research on Indonesian wildlife since 1992. His research focuses on the mammals of Western Indonesia, especially the conservation status of orangutans and bears. In addition, Erik has considerable expertise in forest conservation and sustainable forest management.

William Olupot

William Olupot holds a PhD in Ecology from Purdue University, USA, received in 1999 and is currently working as a Senior Research Scientist with the Wildlif e Conservation Society for the Uganda program. Previously, he was the head of the Scientific Programme of the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation in Ug anda.
His scientific work includes studies on primate behaviour, edge effects, and integration of scientific research with National Park management, In the global arena, he has received major awards for his work including the Conservation Award of the American Society of Primatologists and an Honorary Lifetime Membership Award of the International Primatological Society.
William organized the 2006 meeting of the International Primatological Society in Entebbe, Uganda which was attended by over 750 delegates from around the world.

Dieudonné Musibono

Dieudonné Musibono received his PhD in 1998 from the University of Cape Town, South Africa, in Environmental Sciences, specializing in eco-toxicology and ecosystem quality. He also holds degrees in Biology (BSc Hons) from the National University of Zaire (1982) and in Environmental Management (MSc) from the University of Kinshasa (1987), as well as a postdoctoral certificate from Brown University, USA. Since 1999 he has been a Professor of En vironment and Biology at the University of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and since 2003 he has also been a Professor for Environmental Management and Human Rights for the UNESCO supported branch of the University. Since 2002, Dieudonné has also acted as the Focal point for coordinating studies on the Congo River Basin Biodiversity Survey and Management Project.

Liz Williamson

Liz Williamson is the Coordinator of the Section on Great Apes of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group. She is also a research fellow at the University of Stirling, UK. Liz began fieldwork on great apes in 1982, and completed her PhD on the "Behavioural Ecology of Western Lowland Gorillas in Gabon" in 1988. She has surveyed and studied gorillas, chimpanzees and other large mammals in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Liberia and Rwanda, and was Director of the Karisoke Research Centre from 1996 to 2001.