Bye Bye, Chimps

Here I was having a busy but enjoyable day and then I stumble across this bit of news that will just devastate me today: A study coordinated from Cal State - Fullerton's Department of Anthropology has concluded that Chimpanzees will likely be extinct in 50 years.

That's abominable. Hunting, habitat loss / deforestation, and disease are the primary culprits. These are all problems that we as Chimp's cousins can do something about. They are all consequences of ecological stress; some direct (habitat loss), some indirect (disease). And the smaller the population gets, the more difficult the problems become.

We need to recognize that people in Africa who hunt bushmeat, who I don't absolve of blame, do not do so out of greed, glee or malice. There are pressures on them to feed themselves, obviously, though. And the best cropland in Africa is used to provide cocoa, sugar, coffee and palm oil to European, American, and Chinese markets, often through IMF - funded "development projects," a large portion of which are controlled by international agro-industrial corporations. You want to get at the root of the problem, therein it lies.

But heaven forbid anyone step in the way of free trade or advance the cause of land reform; they must be communists. They'll also be cynically accused of blocking "development assistance" to the third world.

One of the most moving experiences I had growing up was having the good fortune to hear Jane Goodall speak at the Carolina Theater in Durham, NC when I was about 16. I knew she was on to something that it has taken me the next 20 years to synthesize: We are but one of a few apes - perhaps the oddest of the bunch - that emerged from the heart of Africa with tools, manifested in civilization, that allowed us to conquer this world, but that conquering it might not be such a good idea since it will undermine the entire ecological system on which that civilization depends.

If we insist on destroying ourselves through consumption and violence, well then I don't know if this humble half-wit can stop us. But we have no right, no right whatso goddamned ever, to take other species - especially one as sophisticated as our closest, closest cousins, Pan troglodytes - out with us because our convenience and comfort are too precious to sacrifice in solving problems we are completely within our ability to solve.

Damnit. Go give as much to Jane Goodall as you spend on chocolate and espresso.