Non Human Primate Essay

When viewing the topic of non-human primate conservation many issues arise as the

population is constantly growing and therefore requires more accessible space for building and

other land uses. The issue of non-human primate conservation is a large issue in various parts of

the developing world, as they are home to numerous non-human primates and as the developing

the human population is growing and the non-human primate population is decreasing with the

decrease in forest area. Viewing primates is a way of looking into our human past and ancestry,

therefore with the decrease in primates as they are quickly becoming extinct, we could possibly

never know the whole truth behind human ancestry. Many primatologists have
One

specific non-human primate population that can be used to illustrate this debate is the

conversation of the Mountain Gorilla done by the International Gorilla Conservation Program.

The Mountain Gorilla had not been known to science until 1902 and lives in dense forests

in areas of tropical Africa. This non-human primate has a robust build with long arms, this type

of gorilla is known to be the hairiest of all gorillas, as the hair is used for warmth when living in high elevations. An active organization in the fight to conserve Mountain Gorilla life is the

International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), the main goal of this program is to ensure

the conservation of Mountain Gorillas and their natural environment in the main areas of

Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). As noted on the IGCP website,

numerous things are involved in the conservation of Mountain Gorillas such as monitoring of the

gorillas, creating international boundaries as the gorillas do not recognize the areas in which they

are safe and which are not, this then requires help from citizens in the area to create land