Gorillas on the verge of Extinction!

YOU might have missed it, but in December 2008 - when the world's media were preoccupied with President Barack Obama's election and the global economic recession - the United Nations declared 2009 the Year of the Gorilla.

If you did notice, you could be forgiven for wondering why. Just weeks earlier it was reported that almost half of all primate species are at risk of extinction, so why lavish yet more attention on the one that is seldom out of the spotlight?

Gorilla Numbers Plummeting

The simple answer is because they need it now more than ever. Despite all the film footage, fieldwork and fund-raising, and the efforts of park rangers and conservation NGOs, the number of gorillas continues to plummet. Hunting, logging, mining and disease are taking a terrible toll on the greatest of the great apes, and if things continue as they are, they may be reduced to nothing more than a series of small, highly vulnerable populations within decades.

Iconic Animals

That's not the only reason the UN chose to focus on gorillas. These apes are such iconic animals they can galvanise people into action like few others. Redoubling efforts to protect gorillas and their habitats will benefit other endangered primates, including chimps and bonobos. If those efforts centre on development projects and gorilla tourism, they can also improve the lives of some of the world's poorest people.

Long Term Plan for a Short Term Crisis?

That is the UN's plan. And entirely the wrong one, as far as many gorilla experts are concerned. For all its good intentions, they say, there's no way it can work fast enough to give gorillas any chance of recovery.

For all its good intentions, there is no way the UN's strategy can work fast enough to give gorillas any chance of recovery

"If you try to make saving gorillas a development issue, then you will fail," says Peter Walsh, a leading authority on the abundance and distribution of gorillas. "Any action must focus on protecting the gorillas." Nor is tourism the panacea African governments and potential donors think. "The idea that tourism alone can pay for conservation is a pipe dream," Walsh says. With gorilla numbers falling so fast, it is time to take tough decisions, he argues.

All 4 Species Endangered

The challenge is daunting. Each of the four subspecies of gorilla is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List - three of them critically - and each faces its own unique combination of threats and challenges (see map).