Poaching, logging and disease will soon wipe out the last of the world's great apes unless new strategies are devised to save humankind's closest relatives, conservationists said. From Democratic Republic of Congo
and Nigeria in Africa to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra in Asia, scientists fear populations of gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans could disappear within a generation without urgent action.
"As we sit today, it is important to remember we are talking about the future of a member of our family, not a strange creature that lives in the jungle," Richard Leakey, a prominent conservationist from Kenya, told delegates from 23 countries at a conference in the Congolese capital Kinshasa on saving apes.
"The problem of the apes is not a shortage of money, it is a shortage of strategy," Leakey said. "Let us devote our minds -- the one thing we have more of than other apes -- and let's secure their future."
Democratic Republic of Congo is home to chimpanzees and some of the last remaining mountain gorillas, among the world's most endangered species, who roam the volcanic mountains in Virunga National Park straddling the border with Rwanda and Uganda.
The majestic apes were made famous by "Gorillas in the Mist," the film about researcher Dian Fossey who studied them in Rwanda in the 1960s and documented her work in a book before she was hacked to death in Virunga in 1985.
