The Great Apes Survival Project

Gorilla and infant

Endangered mountain gorilla - Uganda. Photo credit: A. Plumptre.

The population of mountain gorillas (g. b. beringei) is estimated to be only 700, of which 320 live in the Bwindi National Park in Uganda. See maps of land cover change & deforestation in the Bwindi area.

The Great Apes Survival Project (GRASP) Partnership launched under UN auspices in 2001 and aims to establish strategies for all regions of Africa and Asia which still have ape populations.

GRASP faces the immediate challenge of reversing those trends that threaten the imminent extinction of most populations of great apes, namely gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) and orangutans.

GRASP mission is to conserve viable, wild populations of every kind of great ape, and to make sure that where they interact with people, those interactions are mutually beneficial and sustainable. To be effective, conservation efforts must identify, prioritize, and optimize actions and investments to protect the most important great ape populations. These priority populations should be monitored to evaluate the success of conservation actions and to create incentives for effective protection.

The GRASP Interim Executive Committee determined that an analysis should be conducted to specify those populations of great apes that if protected, would help save great apes from extinction. The problem is that little is known about great ape distributions, densities, and threats at the scales needed to identify those priority populations. Furthermore, a consensus has developed among conservation scientists and policymakers that a system for monitoring these populations and their habitats should be implemented.

As part of the first GRASP council meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Woods Hole Research Center has developed these web pages to provide access to a preliminary list of these important ape populations.

This work was funded by a grant from UNEP to support the work of the GRASP Scientific Commission and by the NASA Application Program.
     
 

28 June, 2006. The first GRASP educational exhibit was inaugurated at the Uganda National Museum in Kampala, Uganda.