Forests of Hope: The UN-REDD Programme and GRASP Collaborate to Conserve Great Ape Habitat

The UN-REDD Programme blog archive

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Submitted by: Doug Cress

By the year 2030, experts predict that human development will have impacted over 90 per cent of great ape habitat in Equatorial Africa, and that less than one per cent of the orangutan’s undisturbed rainforest homes in Southeast Asia will remain.

That means the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan, whose population is already fragmented across northern Sumatra, will become even more isolated. Cross River gorillas in Cameroon and Nigeria will struggle to survive in the 11 pockets of forest they currently inhabit, mountain gorillas might lose the ability to roam freely across parts of the Albertine Rift, and the 24 chimpanzees that cling to the tiny Gishwati Forest in Rwanda – nicknamed the “Forest of Hope” – might cease to exist at all.

But finding a way to enhance the value of those forests and identify vital corridors that might expand the great apes’ range is…

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