Man’s closest relatives in the animal world — apes, monkeys and other primates — are on the verge of extinction. A major reason is the continuing shrinkage of forests, their natural habitat, which exposes them to human greed and cruelty. These vicious traits are responsible for the illegal trade in wildlife and commercial bush meat hunting, which have placed at least 25 species of primates in peril, according to a report released at the UN Convention of Biological Diversity.
There is a need for accelerated conservation methods starting with the preservation of forests. In India, the forest cover is 21 per cent, although the preferred percentage is for a third of the country. The scene is no better in Africa, where a 21.8 per cent cover puts gorillas and chimpanzees under threat. It is better at 35.1 per cent in East Asia, the home of the baboon, and the Pacific. However, it is only a question of time before ‘development’ decimates these jungles. Primates are valuable not only for dispersing seeds and maintaining forest diversity, but also because of the hints their social and familial lives provide about the evolutionary process. To save them from going the way of the mammoth and the sabre-toothed tiger, forests have to be saved. This will give mankind greater access to food and medicine, which, it is now recognised, is a bounty forests provide if their ecosystem is not damaged.
While determined efforts are being made to protect a wide range of animals and birds from tigers to sparrows, sufficient attention is not paid to the survival of the primates presumably because, prima facie, their numbers — of the monkeys, for instance — not only seem adequate, but also because they are regarded as a nuisance because of their intrusion in the villages and towns. A focus on afforestation can be an answer.