|
|
Great Apes Great Ape Project & Great Apes Survival Project Great Ape Project The Great Ape Project is a scheme to give the great apes, humanity's closest living relatives, the same basic rights as humans. The great apes are bonobo (Pan paniscus), chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus) and gorilla (Gorilla gorilla). A fifth great ape, the human (Homo sapiens), already enjoys many rights and is not included in the Great Ape Project.
Humans often kill the great apes, destroy their social relationships, imprison them for life and expose captive individuals to physical and mental depravation and harm. The Great Ape Project demands our reassessment of the great apes' moral and legal status. Three basic rights proposed for the great apes are the right to life, protection of individual liberty and prohibition of torture. The scheme is an example of tackling speciesism on an international scale. The non-human great apes possess many attributes we value as morally important for ourselves. Like us, the great apes appear self-aware, think and have diverse emotions. Like us, they form life-long relationships, build emotional bonds, grieve when bonds are broken and suffer anxiety and mental illness. Like us they anticipate the near future and make plans, intentionally mislead others (cheating is an important human trait) and remember individuals absent for years. They also possess intellectual abilities comparable at least to young human children. The Great Ape Project was set up in 1993 by eminent authorities from diverse fields and several nationalities (for instance the philosopher Peter Singer). It is said that conferring the great apes with the same basic rights as humans would bring them within the community of equals, the category of persons, of non-property (see Expanding the Circle). The great apes are our closest living relatives genetically, but as George Schaller, the distinguished American zoologist pointed out, humanity is closer to the social-living carnivores, predators like wolf, lion and African wild dog, and our closeness to these predators derives from our shared ecological adaptations. Social-living carnivores and humans have evolved to live in much the same ecological niche: group-living, group-hunting predators, raising their offspring together and pursuing prey together. Following this line of thought, if we give the great apes basic rights then we should also give them to the social carnivores. The case for giving animals rights then extends further than the great apes. As for conferring rights on the great apes, all primate species are threatened with extinction, so the granting of rights to the great apes might amount only to a final good will GASP (see below) on the part of well-wishers. Great Apes Survival Project The Great Apes Survival Project (GASP) is a UNEP and UNESCO program to prevent the imminent extinction of the great apes, bonobo chimpanzee, orang-utan and gorilla. UNEP is the United Nations Environment Programme, established in 1972 to promote the wise use and sustainable development of nature. UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, set up in 1945. Leading conservationists launched the Great Apes Survival Project (not to be confused with the Great Ape Project above) in May 2001. Many leading great ape research and conservation organisations are cooperating in the GASP project to take its message to the topmost levels of governments. Great ape populations are disappearing because of habitat destruction and the commercial bushmeat trade. A burgeoning human population encroaching on the small remaining numbers of non-human great apes in fragmented habitats make the long-term survival of our closest relatives doubtful. ›› To Entries & Home |
Free Illustrations
|