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Vvellum
Stranger

Registered: 05/24/04
Posts: 10,920
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Apes 'extinct in a generation'
#4606615 - 08/31/05 11:23 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4202734.stm
Quote:
Apes 'extinct in a generation' By Richard Black BBC News website environment correspondent
Gorilla in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in DR Congo. Born Free Foundation The great apes are our kin... but we have not treated them with the respect they deserve Kofi Annan Some of the great apes - chimps, gorillas, and orangutans - could be extinct within a human generation, an authoritative new assessment concludes.
Human settlement, logging, mining and disease mean that orangutans in parts of Indonesia may lose half of their habitat within five years.
There are now more than 20,000 humans on the planet for every chimpanzee.
The World Atlas of Great Apes and their Conservation is published by the UN's environment and biodiversity agencies.
It brings together data from many sources in an attempt to assess comprehensively the prospects for the remaining great apes; the gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos of Africa, and the orangutans of south-east Asia.
Gloomy outlook
The great apes; status check
At-a-glance The general conclusion is that the outlook is poor.
"All of the great apes are listed as either endangered or critically endangered," co-author Lera Miles from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre near Cambridge told the BBC News website.
"Critically endangered means that their numbers have decreased, or will decrease, by 80% within three generations."
One critically endangered species is the Sumatran orangutan, of which around 7,300 remain in the wild.
Most live in Aceh province at the northern tip of Sumatra, which saw armed conflict for decades between the Indonesian government and separatist rebels, and which suffered heavily during December's tsunami.
The ranges of the Sumatran and Bornean orangutan. Unep-WCMC
In mid-August, a peace deal was signed which may end the 29-year conflict.
"The irony is that just as things are getting better for the people of Aceh, they're getting worse for wildlife, with people collecting timber, dormant logging concessions being activated, and illegal logging as well," said Dr Miles.
"Projections show that in 50 years time, there could be as few as 250 left in the wild; but that's not a viable size for a population."
The other species of orangutan, in Borneo, is much better off, with around 45,000 animals remaining; though data gathered for this report by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) and its biodiversity agency the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) suggests that numbers have declined 10-fold since the middle of the last century.
African falls
The mountain gorilla of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Cross River gorilla, found on the border between Nigeria and Cameroon, are also listed as critically endangered, with numbers estimated at 700 and 250 respectively.
The ranges of the African great apes. Unep-WCMC
For gorillas and chimpanzees, ebola fever is emerging as a significant threat.
Why ebola is now taking its toll of apes is not clear, but may be connected with forest clearance. One theory is that the as yet unidentified animal which harbours the virus lives on the edges of forests; logging creates more edges, and so enhances the transmission of ebola.
An expert group of researchers which convened in May has just released an action plan for conserving apes in western equatorial Africa.
"If we find ways to protect apes from the ebola virus, we also will protect humans," it concludes.
Market stall selling bushmeat. AFP/Getty Bushmeat can be a significant source of protein in rural west Africa But disease is not the only threat to the well-being of chimpanzees, their close relatives bonobos, and gorillas.
Bushmeat hunting and habitat removal by logging are also major issues.
The 1990s saw forest cover declining in all African countries where gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos live.
Close to human
The World Atlas comes with a foreword by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in which he argues forcibly for the preservation of apes.
"The great apes are our kin," he writes. "Like us, they are self-aware and have cultures, tools, politics, and medicines; they can learn to use sign language, and have conversations with people and with each other.
"Sadly, however, we have not treated them with the respect they deserve."
Clint the chimp. Yerkes National Primate Research Center
Clint proves a close cousin His thesis on the close kinship of ape and man has been reinforced by the publication this week of the chimpanzee genome, demonstrating that humans and chimps share 99% of their active genetic material.
But stopping the decline of ape populations may not be easy, with human encroachment continuing, often under the pressure of poverty.
A key player is the Great Ape Survival Project (Grasp), launched under UN auspices in 2001, which aims to establish strategies for all regions of Africa and Asia which still have ape populations.
It holds its first council meeting next week in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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AliceDee
-L S D-

Registered: 08/10/03
Posts: 3,957
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: Vvellum]
#4606619 - 08/31/05 11:24 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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too long... too drunk....
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Vvellum
Stranger

Registered: 05/24/04
Posts: 10,920
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: AliceDee]
#4606624 - 08/31/05 11:25 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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MagicalMystery
turn off yourmind

Registered: 07/27/05
Posts: 1,740
Loc: Here, there and everywher...
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: Vvellum]
#4606646 - 08/31/05 11:29 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
bi0 said: The great apes are our kin... but we have not treated them with the respect they deserve Kofi Annan
Is that some subliminal racist message?
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"Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest." From the Declaration of the Continental Congress "We can have peace and security only as long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood." Charles A. Lindbergh,"Aviation, Geography, and Race", Reader's Digest, Nov. 1939 "We must secure the existance of our people and a future for White children." David Lane
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afoaf
CEO DBK?


Registered: 11/08/02
Posts: 32,665
Loc: Ripple's Heart
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your sig should never be longer than any more than 50% of your posts.
not only is your sig longer than ALL your posts, it is about 5x as long.
how about a rotating list of quotes instead of forcing us to deal with the 6 foot tall version?
-------------------- All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.
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Redstorm
Prince of Bugs



Registered: 10/08/02
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: afoaf]
#4606716 - 08/31/05 11:40 PM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Uh-oh...
I hear the waaaaaaaaambulance coming!
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!


Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,121
Loc: High pride!
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I really like your signature. Do not listen to that man.
Back on the subject of the thread, apes will never completely go extinct. We'll keep some of them around.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Fe-Fi-Four Plus 2 - I Wanna Come Back (From the World of LSD)
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mycogirl
goddamn



Registered: 07/03/05
Posts: 1,135
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: Vvellum]
#4606815 - 09/01/05 12:12 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Its so sad to have watched this happen all these years, all the documentaries, articles, efforts, movies etc. that depict what is causing these things. We know why this is happening, and is there anything being done to stop this? or is it okay? and if this is okay, if its just a side effect of progress, when does it stop? how many more species will die, how much biodiversity will be lost? how much more of the world will be industrialized? Will we even be able to survive as a species if we keep altering our habitat this dramatically? Will we know, or will it just be too late? Or will we just down play it to ourselves until its too late?
This is seriously disturbing to me. Still, I kind of have this feeling like what can I really do to stop this, even though I would do anything I could, as I'm sure anyone would. I feel paralyzed in the worst way.
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danlennon3
LivingIsEasyWithEyesClosed.....


Registered: 10/29/02
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: mycogirl]
#4606836 - 09/01/05 12:23 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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it's so ironic that the smartest of the ape species is the cause of all of this
-------------------- "Psychedelics should be used not to escape reality, but to embrace it"
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!


Registered: 04/20/01
Posts: 34,121
Loc: High pride!
Last seen: 5 hours, 8 minutes
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: danlennon3]
#4606862 - 09/01/05 12:41 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
danlennon3 said: it's so ironic that the smartest of the ape species is the cause of all of this
Heh, yeah that about says it all. That's irony.
-------------------- -------------------------------- Mp3 of the month: The Fe-Fi-Four Plus 2 - I Wanna Come Back (From the World of LSD)
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trendal
J♠


Registered: 04/17/01
Posts: 20,815
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: Vvellum]
#4607273 - 09/01/05 07:40 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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This isn't just a problem with apes. The worst-case estimates are that we will lose 90% of all species on the Earth within the next 100 years. Even the best-case scenarios put this at around 50-60%. They've already named this extinction event (it started about 30,000 years ago...coincidentally right at the time Humans were beginning to exert themselves as a species) - it's called the "Holocene Extinction Event".
There was only one good part to the movie "The Day After Tomorrow". When one of the main characters was making his speech to the government, about how the entire northern hemisphere was going to be covered with ice in 6 days. When he's done the speech, one of the govt officials asks him:
Govt: "What do you suggest we do?" Scientist: "Evacuate the entire northern half of the USA." Govt: (laughs) "Ok, buddy...we'll leave the science to you...you leave the policy to us." Scientist: "Um...yeah, we already did that. Look where it got us."
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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
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drtyfrnk
PresidentialCandidate 2008



Registered: 01/24/05
Posts: 2,961
Loc: Ontario, Canada
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: trendal]
#4607441 - 09/01/05 09:19 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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90% of all species within 100 Years? I can believe that.
Look where we are going right now, way too many people on this planet to support all of us.
I just hope that in the future, We move to another planet or kill off a hell of a lot of people so we can all live.
-------------------- It's Krang, Bitch!
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Jabbawaya

Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 1,479
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: Vvellum]
#4607450 - 09/01/05 09:23 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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...
I feel sick.
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afoaf
CEO DBK?


Registered: 11/08/02
Posts: 32,665
Loc: Ripple's Heart
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Re: Apes 'extinct in a generation' [Re: Learyfan]
#4607620 - 09/01/05 10:24 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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there's a million poignant quotes in this world...
why not put them ALL in your sig?
-------------------- All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.
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