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From the website: The IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group is publishing new guidelines for surveys and monitoring of great ape populations. These guidelines address a need which has existed since great ape studies began -- the challenge of collecting consistently high-quality data for comparison between a wide variety of sites, and often across many years. This need is driven less by academic interest than by the urgent demands of field-based conservation. The maelstrom of threats which now endanger all the great apes must be addressed by immediate action on every scale: initiatives at individual sites, strategies on the regional and national level, and species-wide action plans and international accords. All of these efforts must be founded on accurate field data -- and to fully understand the impact of specific threats, and to measure if conservation programs are succeeding, it is essential to have baseline density estimates and sustained monitoring of great ape populations. The newest publication in the Best Practice series outlines current approaches to these issues, offering guidance and perspective on choices that must be made by wildlife biologists, site managers, government agencies and the conservation community at large. This report provides an overview of the variety of survey methodologies that have been developed, as well as a decision tree to help select the approach that is best for a particular site or situation, depending on available resources. As a continuation of this report, a series of modules will be made available online, which will present detailed information on survey design, field techniques, analytical approaches, and practical issues such as logistics, finance and standardized reporting. These new IUCN guidelines will help researchers to standardize their data collection and, just as importantly, will allow for improved comparisons between datasets. This will complement the A.P.E.S. database (http://apes.eva.mpg.de), which is intended to serve as a repository for survey data on great apes, and to analyze trends in their populations. These survey and monitoring guidelines, combined with resources available via A.P.E.S., are important steps towards a comprehensive understanding of the conservation status of great apes, at both the population and species level. .
Executive summary: Tourism is often proposed 1) as a strategy to fund conservation efforts to protect great apes and their habitats, 2) as a way for local communities to participate in, and benefit from, conservation activities on behalf of great apes, or 3) as a business. A few very successful sites point to the considerable potential of conservation-based great ape tourism, but it will not be possible to replicate this success everywhere. The number of significant risks to great apes that can arise from tourism reqire a cautious approach. If great ape tourism is not based on sound conservation principles right from the start, the odds are that economic objectives will take precedence, the consequences of which in all likelihood would be damaging to the well-being and eventual survival of the apes, and detrimental to the continued preservation of their habitat. All great ape species and subspecies are classified as Endangered or Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN 2010), therefore it is imperative that great ape tourism adhere to the best practice guidelines in this document. The guiding principles of best practice in great ape tourism are: Tourism is not a panacea for great ape conservation or revenue generation; Tourism can enhance long-term support for the conservation of great apes and their habitat; Conservation comes first--it must be the primary goal at any great ape site and tourism can be a tool to help fund it; Great ape tourism should only be developed if the anticipated conservation benefits, as identified in impact studies, significantly outweigh the risks; Enhanced conservation investment and action at great ape tourism sites must be sustained in perpetuity; Great ape tourism management must be based on sound and objective science; Benefits and profit for communities adjacent to great ape habitat should be maximised; Profit to private sector partners and others who earn income associated with tourism is also important, but should not be the driving force for great ape tourism development or expansion; Comprehensive understanding of potential impacts must guide tourism development. positive impacts from tourism must be maximised and negative impacts must be avoided or, if inevitable, better understood and mitigated. The ultimate success or failure of great ape tourism can lie in variables that may not be obvious to policymakers who base their decisions primarily on earning revenue for struggling conservation programmes. However, a number of biological, geographical, economic and global factors can affect a site so as to render ape tourism ill-advised or unsustainable. This can be due, for example, to the failure of the tourism market for a particular site to provide revenue sufficient to cover the development and operating costs, or it can result from failure to protect the target great apes from the large number of significant negative aspects inherent in tourism. Either of these failures will have serious consequences for the great ape population. Once apes are habituated to human observers, they are at increased risk from poaching and other forms of conflict with humans. They must be protected in perpetuity even if tourism fails or ceases for any reason. Great ape tourism should not be developed without conducting critical feasibility analyses to ensure there is sufficient potential for success. Strict attention must be paid to the design of the enterprise, its implementation and continual management capacity in a manner that avoids, or at least minimises, the negative impacts of tourism on local communities and on the apes themselves. Monitoring programmes to track costs and impacts, as well as benefits, [is] essential to inform management on how to optimise tourism for conservation benefits. These guidelines have been developed for both existing and potential great ape tourism sites that wish to improve the degree to which their programme constributes to the conservation rather than the exploitation of great apes.
From the website: Although the IUCN has previously established working protocols for plant and animal re-introduction, the great apes present unique challenges and concerns owing to their singular cognitive development. This prompted the Primate Specialist Group to reconsider the existing guidelines in terms of the specific needs of great apes. The resulting synthesis, representing the expert opinion of primatologists and re-introduction practitioners, is presented here as part of the series of best-practices documents. Specifically designed for rehabilitators and specialists in re-introduction, these guidelines start from the fundamental assumption that re-introductions should not endanger wild populations of great apes or the ecosystems they inhabit. Equally important is the health and welfare of the individual great apes being re-introduced, as well as the caretaker staff and the residents of the surrounding areas. The re-introduction guidelines also require that the factors which first threatened great apes in the proposed site of release have been addressed and resolved.
Executive summary: One of the challenges facing great ape conservation is the rising level of interaction between humans and great apes, and the resulting conflicts that emerge. As human populations continue to grow and human development makes deeper incursions into forest habitats, such conflicts will become more widespread and prevalent in the natural ranges of great apes, especially considering that the majority of great apes live outside protected areas. It is essential that we develop a comprehensive understanding of existing and potential conflict situations, and their current or future impacts on both great apes and humans. This will require the integration of quantitative and qualitative data on multiple aspects of human and great ape behaviour and ecology, along with a good understanding of local people's perceptions of the situation. Such knowledge can then be used to develop effective, locally-adapted, management strategies to prevent or mitigate human-great ape conflicts, whilst respecting both conservation objectives and socio-cultural-economic contexts. These guidelines outline a sequence of logical steps that should be considered prior to any form of human-great ape conflict intervention, and propose possible counter-measures to be used in the management of human-great ape conflicts.
From the website: One of the fiercest dangers to great apes is the destruction of their forest habitat by commercial logging operations. This threat was highlighted in May 2005 at an expert workshop held in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. In response, Drs. David Morgan and Crickette Sanz have developed a new set of best-practices guidelines for Western Equatorial Africa, to help blunt the worst effects of tropical logging on the surviving great apes in the region. Targeted at forestry managers and partners working in forestry concessions, these guidelines present practical, straightforward recommendations to help reduce the impact of logging on great apes, including cost-benefit analyses and the expected long-term consequences for great apes in the region. If these guidelines are upheld by professionals working in tropical forestry, they will contribute greatly to the survival of great apes in the region, and will serve as a blueprint for developing site-specific management plans.
Rehabilitation and translocation programmes are increasingly becoming an important component of conservation action plans for threatened species. Translocation can help address gibbon conservation issues (gibbons are recognized as one of the most threatened primate families globally) by allowing gibbons held in captivity to be rescued, rehabilitated and then returned to the wild. These guidelines for the translocation of gibbons have been developed in collaboration with stakeholders in hylobatid conservation. This process was initiated druing a workshop on gibbon rehabilitation, reintroduction and translocation, facilitated by the IUCN SSC PSG Section on Small Apes (SSA), and the result of this process is the current document, which is based on shared knowledge and experience to date. The guidelines are designed to be a practical and useful document available for all stakeholders, with the aim of equipping field projects and decision makers with the tools for scientifically sound practice in gibbon rehabilitation and translocation.
The chimpanzees of Bossou in Guinea, West Africa, form a unique community which displays an exceptional array of tool use behaviors and behavioral adaptations to coexistence with humans. This community of Pan troglodytes verus has contributed more than three decades of data to the field of cultural primatology, especially chimpanzees’ flexible use of stones to crack open nuts and of perishable tools during foraging activities. The book highlights the special contribution of the long-term research at Bossou and more recent studies in surrounding areas, particularly in the Nimba Mountains and the forest of Diécké, to our understanding of wild chimpanzees’ tool use, cognitive development, lithic technology and culture. This compilation of research principally strives to uncover the complexity of the mind and behavioral flexibility of our closest living relatives. This work also reveals the necessity for ongoing efforts to conserve chimpanzees in the region. Chimpanzees have shed more light on our evolutionary origins than any other extant species in the world, yet their numbers in the wild are rapidly declining. In that sense, the Bossou chimpanzees and their neighbors clearly embody an invaluable cultural heritage for humanity as a whole. Readers can enjoy video clips illustrating unique behaviors of Bossou chimpanzees, in an exclusive DVD accompanying the hardcover or at a dedicated website described in the softcover.
Rigorously and objectively examines the evolving context within which great ape and gibbon habitats are increasingly interfacing with extractive industries.
Wild chimpanzees are only found in tropical Africa, where their populations have declined by more than 66% in the last 30 years. This Action Plan focuses on one of the four chimpanzee subspecies, the western chimpanzee, which is one of the two subspecies most threatened with extinction. This publication presents a plan for action that represents a consensus among all parties concerned with the conservation of chimpanzees.