Post by Shadow on Sept 19, 2005 12:44:59 GMT -5
Treaty offers world's last chance to save great apes
The Independent
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Published: 12 September 2005
The agreement sets targets for slowing the loss of great apes and their forest habitats by 2010, and for securing their future in the wild by 2015
They are man's closest cousins and they are staring into the abyss. But in one of the most important environmental treaties, hope has been offered to stop the headlong slide towards extinction of humankind's nearest relatives, the great apes.
The agreement signed in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is on a par with the 1982 whaling moratorium and the 1997 Kyoto protocol on climate change. It offers a real chance to halt the remorseless jungle slaughter of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos [pygmy chimpanzees] and orang-utans, which on current trends is likely to kill them all off within a generation.
The Independent
Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Published: 12 September 2005
The agreement sets targets for slowing the loss of great apes and their forest habitats by 2010, and for securing their future in the wild by 2015
They are man's closest cousins and they are staring into the abyss. But in one of the most important environmental treaties, hope has been offered to stop the headlong slide towards extinction of humankind's nearest relatives, the great apes.
The agreement signed in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is on a par with the 1982 whaling moratorium and the 1997 Kyoto protocol on climate change. It offers a real chance to halt the remorseless jungle slaughter of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos [pygmy chimpanzees] and orang-utans, which on current trends is likely to kill them all off within a generation.