Bonobo (Pan paniscus) Conservation Strategy 2012–2022



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The process culminated in 2011 with a bonobo conservation stakeholder workshop convened 

under the auspices of the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature and the International 

Union for Conservation of Nature, which brought together 68 people representing 33 organizations 

and government departments to develop a bonobo conservation strategy. Stakeholders at the 

workshop formulated the following Vision and Goal for the strategy:



Vision By 2050, bonobo populations across their range are viable and increasing relative to 2008–

2015 surveys, face minimal threats, and their long-term survival is ensured.



Goal By 2022, priority areas for bonobo conservation are effectively managed and protected, the 

current main threats are reduced, there is no further habitat loss, and known bonobo populations 

are stable relative to baseline surveys.

When workshop participants ranked threats to the bonobo’s survival with regard to spatial scope, 

severity and reversibility, poaching emerged as by far the most important direct threat. Reducing 

bonobo mortality due to poaching should therefore be of highest priority for conservation action. 

Habitat loss through deforestation and fragmentation ranked second, while recognising that for-

ests are often severely depleted of their wildlife before habitat destruction begins. Disease was 

considered to be a potential future threat.

Indirect threats (factors that contribute to the persistence of direct threats) were judged to be inti-

mately interconnected and essentially linked to difficult socioeconomic and political contexts, and 

the problems of weak governance that result from them. Indirect threats to bonobos include the 

bushmeat trade, proliferation of weapons and ammunition, weak law enforcement, weak stake-

holder commitment to conservation, human population growth, expansion of slash-and-burn agri-

culture, insufficient subsistence alternatives, and industrial-scale commercial activities which have 

the potential for enormous negative impact: agriculture, logging, oil and mining, and associated 

infrastructure development. 

Objectives, intervention strategies and actions were elaborated during the workshop. The objec-

tives of the overall strategy fall under four main intervention strategies:

1. 


Strengthening institutional capacity. Objectives include creating new protected areas, elimi-

nating poaching in protected areas, monitoring and controlling the bushmeat trade, eliminating 

the circulation of weapons and ammunition in protected areas, and working with logging com-

panies to implement specific wildlife protection activities in their concessions.

2. 

Consultation and collaboration with local actors. Objectives include integrating bonobo con-

servation issues into national development plans, developing land-use and macro-zoning plans, 

and implementing sustainable subsistence activities at key sites.

3. 


Awareness building and lobbying. Objectives include developing a nationwide communica-

tions strategy, undertaking awareness-building activities at key sites, sensitising urban com-

munities and private sector operators, and lobbying government administration at national and 

provincial levels.

4. 

Research and monitoring activities. The objective is to develop a clear monitoring framework. 

Implicit throughout this plan is that surveys and monitoring of both bonobos and the threats 

to bonobos (including disease/health monitoring) are necessary as a means to track changes 

in population size and distribution, to assess the level and location of threats, and ultimately 

to assess progress towards the Goal and Vision of the Strategy. There will also be a disease 

prevention plan, focussed on the prevention of human-bonobo disease spread, together with 

an early detection mechanism and an emergency intervention plan to address potentially cata-

strophic disease outbreaks.

5. 

Sustainable funding. The objective is to evaluate funding needs for bonobo conservation and 

create sustainable sources of funding.

It is recommended that a mechanism to coordinate bonobo conservation activities and imple-

mentation of the strategy be established. Detailed project proposals and activity plans to address 

the different objectives will be developed once the coordination mechanism is in place. Additional 

information relevant to this conservation strategy is available at www.primate-sg.org/bonobo/




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2. Introduction

The bonobo, Pan paniscus, is an Endangered species of great ape endemic to the Democratic 

Republic of Congo (DRC), and found only in the equatorial forests south of the Congo River. The 

Congo River forms a biogeographical barrier separating bonobos from chimpanzees, Pan troglo-

dytes, and gorillas, Gorilla beringei. Bonobos occupy a variety of habitats, including dense humid 

forest, swamp forest, dry forests, secondary forests and forest/savanna mosaics. They prefer to 

nest in mixed mature forest terra firma habitat (Mohneke & Fruth 2008; Reinartz et al. 2006, 2008), 

but swamp forests are also an important habitat for nesting (Mulavwa et al. 2010; Furuichi et al

2012). Their historic range extends from the Lualaba River in the east to the Kasaï and Sankuru 

rivers in the south, and the Congo River to the north and west, across an area of 564,542 km². 

Bonobos are mainly frugivorous, but also eat vegetation (leaves, flowers, seeds, mushrooms, algae 

and aquatic plants), invertebrates (larvae, termites, ants, earthworms) and occasionally fish and 

small- to medium-sized mammals. They live in fission-fusion communities of 10 to over a hun-

dred animals, on average 30–80 individuals, moving in smaller parties when they feed. Adolescent 

females emigrate from their natal communities and move between communities before settling 

permanently into one. Males usually remain in their natal community. Bonobo males are less ter-

ritorial and less aggressive towards males of neighbouring communities than are chimpanzee 

males. A major difference with chimpanzees and most other primates is their social structure, 

which is female dominated. Female coalitions influence mating strategies and food sharing, and 

are maintained and reinforced by behaviour unique to bonobos known as genital rubbing. This 

behaviour also serves to reduce social tensions (e.g., Lacambra et al. 2005; Fruth et al. 2013; 

Reinartz et al. 2013).

Bonobos are classified as Endangered on the Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2012), and 

are listed on Appendix I of the Convention for International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). 

Although information on the status of bonobos outside areas where the Institut Congolais pour la 

Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) and its conservation partners are active is incomplete, there is a 

consensus that bonobo numbers are declining over much of the species’ range. The most imme-

diate threats to their survival are poaching and habitat loss, both in terms of habitat destruction 

and fragmentation. These direct threats have increased significantly during the wars and political 

and economic instability that DRC has endured during the past 20 years. Poaching for the com-

mercial bushmeat trade is the greatest threat to wildlife throughout the Congo Basin and is particu-

larly damaging to slow-reproducing species, such as the great apes (e.g., Williamson et al. 2013). 

Habitat destruction and fragmentation are the result of several factors driven by human population 

growth and the expansion of subsistence and commercial agricultural activities.

2.1 Bonobo Conservation Strategies

Experts have drawn up strategies for bonobo conservation through a number of meetings and 

workshops (Thompson-Handler et al. 1995; Coxe et al. 2000; Thompson et al. 2003; GRASP 2005). 

These plans were ambitious in their objectives, and implementation has so far been extremely 

limited. This is probably because the objectives generally lacked pragmatism, were too all-encom-

passing and required resources that would be extremely difficult to mobilise. The most recent of 

these plans, which covered all three great ape species that occur in DRC, adopted a more prag-

matic approach with conservation actions focusing on surveys, research and monitoring, strength-

ening of the protected area network and conservation education. Many of these actions have been 

partially or wholly accomplished; however, this plan did not target direct interventions, such as 

antipoaching activities to reduce the killing of great apes, even though most NGOs have been sup-

porting government antipoaching activities for the past 15 years. In addition, the structure given 

responsibility for coordinating implementation does not have a clearly agreed mandate, or the 

necessary resources, to fulfil its responsibilities.



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