Urgent aid needed for apes, U.N. says

PARIS — Poachers shoot them. Smugglers sell their babies as exotic pets. Illegal loggers wipe out the rain forests where they live. And civil wars drive them away.

The great apes — gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans — are in great danger, the United Nations said as its environment and cultural agencies ended a meeting Friday on how to protect the closest relative to humans in the animal world.

The three-day talks in Paris drew representatives from 18 countries for what organizers said was the most wide-ranging meeting ever on endangered great apes. They worked out a global strategy to prevent poaching and illegal trade, while encouraging education and ecotourism.

The agencies say they urgently need at least $25 million for programs to save the apes from the threat of extinction.

"We may need a much larger sum, certainly in the hundreds of millions, if we’re going to guarantee saving these animals," said Robert Hepworth of the United Nations Environment Program.

The great apes share more than 96 percent of their DNA with humans.

"If we can’t save these species which are so close to us … do we have very much hope with some of the other particularly threatened species and ecosystems?" Hepworth said.

Today, there are believed to be about 400,000 great apes in Africa and Asia, compared with millions in the 19th century, the U.N. says. Each of the species is at high risk of extinction, some soon, others within 50 years, organizers said.

"The writing is very much on the wall: We have within the next 15 to 20 years to halt that decline," said Ian Redmond, head of the technical support team for the U.N.’s Great Apes Survival Project, www.unep.org/grasp.

In Senegal, there are only 200 to 400 chimpanzees left in the wild. In Ghana, there are 300 to 500 left, and Guinea Bissau has fewer than 200. Research shows that chimpanzee populations have already disappeared from Benin, Gambia and Togo.

Because the apes live in remote areas, their habitats are often hard to map. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is working with the European Space Agency to use satellites or remote sensing to track where ape habitats are being destroyed.

At the meeting, the agencies put together a plan on how countries can protect their apes. Among the suggestions was giving law enforcement more resources to prevent smuggling.

The agencies are also encouraging countries to think about ways in which apes are an asset. Uganda and Rwanda have made apes the center of their tourism industries. Travelers pay about $100 for a daylong guided walking tour to see chimps — a small fortune in impoverished countries.

Apes tend the forests by spreading seeds and pruning branches. Along with elephants, they are the "gardeners of the forests," Redmond said.