Great Apes

Losing their homes, losing their lives

Common Name		Great apes; Grands singes(Fr); Simios(Sp)
Location		Africa and Asia

Background

In Africa, bonobos, eastern and western gorillas, and chimpanzees are rapidly losing much of their forest habitat, which is being degraded and fragmented by human activities such as agriculture, mining, and commercial logging.

Victims of humans
Many populations of these apes are found in areas where civil wars are raging, making conservation difficult if not impossible. The hunting of forest animals for bushmeat, once a subsistance activity, has become a major commercial enterprise throughout west and central Africa. Poaching for the live animal trade, and susceptibility to disease also threaten some species and populations.

The only Asian ape is losing its home
Asia's only ape, the orang-utan, is also in deep trouble. Its last remaining strongholds in the rainforests of Sumatra (Indonesia) and the island of Borneo (Indonesia and Malaysia) are being destroyed by illegal logging, a proliferation of oil palm plantations, and by widespread forest fires, many set by plantation owners. The orang-utan, the red "man of the forest" may be extinct in the wild in a few decades unless we act quickly.

What WWF is doing
In collaboration with governments, communities and partner organizations, the WWF Species Programme and the WWF Forest Programme are working together with WWF programmes in Africa and Asia to try and save the great apes and their habitats.

» Find out about the WWF African Great Apes Programme

Habitat

Biogeographic realm
Afrotropical and Indo-Malayan

Geographical Location
Africa and Asia