In my children’s lifetimes, I believe gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans will all become extinct in the wild. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: do we want our children to see only in zoos what used to exist in the real world (46) It is the great apes that will disappear first, because there are so few of them left, and because they’re so vulnerable to changes in their habitats.
Many of the threats to these animals result from a global economy not local pressures. The threat to the orangutan in Indonesia, for example, is largely a result of deforestation and the risks to primates in Africa result from the timber-trade and the demand for bush-meat. (47) The two work together: logging opens up the forest, which means that the bush-meat can be got out fast, to Kinshasa or to London.
(48) If we want to avoid the disaster scenario, people in developed countries will have to take a global perspective and accept responsibility for the damage export crops such as timber, coffee, cut flowers or even green beans, do to the environment. The challenge is to avoid simply imposing western attitudes on local peoples.
Already there are no truly wild places left in the world. (49) Looking at wildlife has become the preserve of the middle classes over the last twenty-odd years, and as wild animals become even rarer, so more tourists want to see them. But tour ism alone plainly cannot conserve the world’s animals; economic development is the priority.
For the future, I suspect that ff you really want to do something about wild life conservation, you would be better off putting your money into women’s education rather than just into the protection of flagship species. (50) Women often bear the direct costs of wildlife conflict; their knowledge of how to deal with conflict and how to control their own reproductive destinies may yet determine the survival of many threatened species.
It is the great apes that will disappear first, because there are so few of them left, and because they’re so vulnerable to changes in their habitats.