Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Why the link between long-term research and conservation is a case worth making
- 2 Links between research and Protected Area management in Uganda
- 3 The use of research: how science in Uganda's National Parks has been applied
- 4 Long-term research and conservation in Kibale National Park
- 5 Monitoring forest–savannah dynamics in Kibale National Park with satellite imagery (1989–2003): implications for the management of wildlife habitat
- 6 Long-term studies reveal the conservation potential for integrating habitat restoration and animal nutrition
- 7 Long-term perspectives on forest conservation: lessons from research in Kibale National Park
- 8 Health and disease in the people, primates, and domestic animals of Kibale National Park: implications for conservation
- 9 The importance of training national and international scientists for conservation research
- 10 Community benefits from long-term research programs: a case study from Kibale National Park, Uganda
- 11 Potential interactions of research with the development and management of ecotourism
- 12 The human landscape around the Island Park: impacts and responses to Kibale National Park
- 13 Conservation and research in the Budongo Forest Reserve, Masindi District, Western Uganda
- 14 Long-term research and conservation in Gombe National Park, Tanzania
- 15 Long-term research and conservation in the Mahale Mountains, Tanzania
- 16 The contribution of long-term research by the Taï Chimpanzee Project to conservation
- 17 The Green Corridor Project: long-term research and conservation in Bossou, Guinea
- 18 Long-term research and conservation of the Virunga mountain gorillas
- 19 Long-term research and conservation of great apes: a global future
- 20 Long-term research and conservation: the way forward
- Index
Foreword
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 July 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Why the link between long-term research and conservation is a case worth making
- 2 Links between research and Protected Area management in Uganda
- 3 The use of research: how science in Uganda's National Parks has been applied
- 4 Long-term research and conservation in Kibale National Park
- 5 Monitoring forest–savannah dynamics in Kibale National Park with satellite imagery (1989–2003): implications for the management of wildlife habitat
- 6 Long-term studies reveal the conservation potential for integrating habitat restoration and animal nutrition
- 7 Long-term perspectives on forest conservation: lessons from research in Kibale National Park
- 8 Health and disease in the people, primates, and domestic animals of Kibale National Park: implications for conservation
- 9 The importance of training national and international scientists for conservation research
- 10 Community benefits from long-term research programs: a case study from Kibale National Park, Uganda
- 11 Potential interactions of research with the development and management of ecotourism
- 12 The human landscape around the Island Park: impacts and responses to Kibale National Park
- 13 Conservation and research in the Budongo Forest Reserve, Masindi District, Western Uganda
- 14 Long-term research and conservation in Gombe National Park, Tanzania
- 15 Long-term research and conservation in the Mahale Mountains, Tanzania
- 16 The contribution of long-term research by the Taï Chimpanzee Project to conservation
- 17 The Green Corridor Project: long-term research and conservation in Bossou, Guinea
- 18 Long-term research and conservation of the Virunga mountain gorillas
- 19 Long-term research and conservation of great apes: a global future
- 20 Long-term research and conservation: the way forward
- Index
Summary
In the closing years of the twentieth century, reports of ape populations in decline caused increasing alarm among conservationists. Not everyone was convinced at first, because broad trends were being extrapolated from patchy data. Many of the reports were anecdotal, and dealt with the fate of individual apes rather than populations; long-term research sites, however, yielded relatively accurate figures over time. Eventually, more and more eyewitness accounts from researchers, conservation field-workers, and investigative journalists drew the same conclusion: our closest relatives in the animal kingdom were facing extinction in a matter of decades unless the causes of their decline were addressed.
The causes were, and still are, human activities. Most of these – hunting, logging, agriculture, and warfare – have been practiced for millennia at self-evidently sustainable levels. The difference today is one of scale – especially when the activities are driven by international commerce and demand from the developed world for resources such as timber and minerals from ape habitats. Even natural threats such as disease are being exacerbated by the impact of the modern world on the apes' habitat. If these pressures continue unchecked, local extinctions will increase, leading to total extinction in the wild within our lifetime.
Attention was drawn in the 1990s to the rise of the commercial bushmeat trade in Africa, linked to the expansion of logging concessions into previously inaccessible forests, especially in the Congo basin (Redmond,1989; Pearce and Ammann, 1995). Bushmeat – the meat of wild animals – varies from caterpillars to elephants.
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- Information
- Science and Conservation in African ForestsThe Benefits of Longterm Research, pp. xiii - xviiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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