[Mb-civic] Our endangered siblings - Richard Leakey - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

Our endangered siblings

By Richard Leakey  |  September 22, 2005

I HAVE always felt that an injustice was done when science classified 
different species on earth, because it was done by an interested party. 
Had humanity not been the interested party, we would have been the fifth 
great ape.

We are not different from the great apes in any significant way. When we 
regard chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, or bonobos, we are looking at 
a family member.

As recently revealed, the genetic makeup of chimpanzees and humans is 
virtually identical, and the apes' evolutionary divergence from mankind 
is almost irrelevant in chronological terms.

Years of research has revealed that the great apes make tools, 
self-medicate, possess activities for culture and language-like 
communications, practice stress relief and conflict management, and even 
wage war. They mourn, envy, laugh, console, resent, and reconcile, and 
their emotions and personalities are so evocative of humanity that 
recent studies have focused on relatively mundane aspects such as 
whether chimpanzees are naturally right-handed.

But at a time when humanity is beset by tsunamis, hurricanes, famine, 
drought, and other byproducts of climate change -- in addition to 
man-made conflicts around the globe -- it is worth considering the 
precarious situation facing the great apes. Simply stated, some species 
could be extinct in the wild within 25 years, and all four could vanish 
within my granddaughter's lifetime.

Chimpanzees have already disappeared from four countries where they once 
thrived, and a great ape atlas released this month by the United Nations 
Great Apes Survival Project revealed that the natural habitats of most 
great apes are compromised by human encroachment and extractive 
industries such as logging and mining. It is no accident that the 
shrinking equatorial forests across Africa and Asia parallel the 
disappearance of the great apes themselves; like the residents of the 
Gulf Coast in America, the great apes are increasingly homeless. Even 
where their forests survive, they often are intensely hunted.

The one way in which we are better than apes is in our minds, so it's 
time to use them. Representatives from 21 African and Asian nations met 
this month in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital, Kinshasa, to 
sign the Declaration on Great Apes, the first UN-level document that 
commits the countries in which great apes live to protecting them. 
Organized by the Great Apes Survival Project, a unique partnership 
between nations, donors, scientists, and supporters, the declaration may 
be the best, last hope the great apes will have.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/22/our_endangered_siblings/
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