The Great Ape World Heritage Species Project

Abstract

The mission of the Great Ape World Heritage Species Project is to offer a new way to help avert the extinction crisis that currently faces chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans, and in so doing to assist the plight of these apes in captivity also. We believe that a higher international profile for the great apes is necessary if they are to survive in the wild. Our goal is therefore to launch a collaboration that will lead to designating the great apes as World Heritage Species. This designation of World Heritage Species would denote a new internationally protected category of species. The essential notion of World Heritage Species status is that any species so named would be recognized to be of outstanding universal value, and to need special help if they are to be conserved in the wild. Outstanding universal value is the operational criterion for nominations to the World Heritage Convention, so designation of World Heritage Species might be through a protocol to this convention. The great apes would be the first set of species to be so named. Others would be expected to follow. We consider that the designation of great apes as World Heritage Species would advance their conservation by accelerating international cooperation in three main ways, signified by attention, resources, and mechanism. Attention means elevating awareness of the value and plight of great apes, particularly among political leaders. Resources means increasing the resources needed to help the great apes, especially by tapping into the worldwide interest in great ape welfare as a result of their unique relationship with humans. Mechanism means creating a new international mechanism for organizing great ape conservation in the wild, given that no such mechanism currently exists. The Great Ape World Heritage Species Project (GAWHSP) was initiated in January 2001 with the appointment by the International Primatological Society of an Ad-hoc Committee for the World Heritage Status for the Great