United Nations Environment Programme

Grasp
Human Dimension
Poverty and Great Ape Conservation  

DRC Vice-President Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi shakes hands with Melanie Virtue, GRASP Team Leader
The endangered great apes share their living space with many millions of people in west and central Africa and southeast Asia. Fifteen of the 23 African great ape range states are Least Developed Countries (LDCs) where incomes average less than three dollars a day. One of the GRASP Partnership’s missions is to create a genuine partnership between all stakeholders in these ecosystems.

The future survival of the great apes lies in recognizing the importance of empowering the local communities with whom the great apes share their natural habitat. Ape habitats are vital to humans and many other species as a source of food, water, medicine and timber and as a regulator to our changing climate. A reduction in ape numbers is a sure sign that the forests are being used unsustainably. Most communities living in the humid forests hosting the great apes are impoverished and more often than not are exploited by external forces interested in the natural resources found therein. The loss in the rich biodiversity found in these habitats will not only lead to the extinction of the great apes but also to the threat of the very survival of the local communities dependent on the great ape habitat.

The GRASP Partnership promotes the importance of forests and their human inhabitants at the international level by focusing on the conservation of flagship species (great apes), which live in tropical forests, and encouraging community development, national planning activities and donor commitment to address the protection of these habitats. GRASP works with local people to develop and implement development and conservation initiatives that are of mutual benefit to communities and great apes.

 

Melanie Virtue
A young inhabitat of central Kalimantan, Borneo

Poverty and lack of knowledge drive their victims to use wildlife and other natural resources unsustainably. The need to link the welfare of humans and wildlife is a central objective of the GRASP Partnership. It is one of the key criteria for choosing projects for GRASP support, such as the International Gorilla Conservation Programme's (IGCP) conservation of mountain gorillas and Afro-montane forests. Poverty reduction is also a key theme of GRASP's National Great Ape Survival Plan (NGASPs) and other conservation planning processes. The GRASP Partnership supports projects that address these issues by helping people as well as wildlife. Above all, it is essential to support community-based projects that protect the entire forest resource - and maintain its capacity to supply people with essentials such as water, food, medicine, building materials, soil and fuel.

Specific GRASP activities in this area include:

• Support to rangers from the Virunga parks to attend the 2003 Durban World Parks Congress to raise awareness of their situation and share experiences with their counterparts from other countries.
• Submission in progress with the Global Environmental Facility for the funding of a GRASP project addressing the effects of, and responses to, Ebola-outbreaks on both human and great ape populations in Central Africa.
• Support to the TVE documentary "Blood Timber", broadcast on BBC TV and focusing on the plight of the Baka people of Cameroon and the apes, who share their habitat.
• Financial assistance to Bristol Zoo Garden's educational project in Cameroon, which is attempting to establish an effective two-way communication between villagers and conservation and/or development initiatives.
• Capacity building of national range state conservation authorities through the provision of office equipment such as desktop computers.
• Preliminary negotiations for a charity fundraising soccer match between the national teams of Cameroon and Nigeria, which will highlight the links between poverty and the environment.
• Intention of establishing links with New Partnership for African Development's (NEPAD) Plan of Action on Poverty and the Environment.
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