Jul 29, 2014
The world's great apes face extinction within decades, renowned chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall warned Tuesday, in a call to arms to ensure man's closest relatives are not wiped out.
"If we don't take action the great apes will disappear, because of both habitat destruction as well as trafficking," Goodall told AFP in an interview in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
In the past half century, chimpanzee numbers have slumped from two million to just 300,000, spread over 21 countries, said Goodall, a British scientist who spent more than five decades studying chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe National Park.
"If we don't change something, they certainly will disappear, or be left in tiny pockets where they will struggle from inbreeding," said the 80-year-old, the first scientist to observe that apes as well as humans use tools.
Experts predict that at the current rate, human development will have impacted 90 percent of the apes' habitat in Africa and 99 percent in Asia by 2030, according to a UN-backed report last month.
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