Approximately 345,000 or fewer chimpanzees remain in the wild, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a substantial decline from the more than 2 million that existed a hundred years ago. Humans' closest genetic cousins, chimpanzees are an endangered species, and scientists and conservationists are turning to the NASA-U.S. Geological Survey Landsat satellites to help bolster their efforts to preserve their forest homes.
"Chimpanzees are in crisis," said Lilian Pintea, a remote sensing specialist and vice president of conservation science for the Jane Goodall Institute, Vienna, Virginia, citing hunting and illegal bushmeat consumption, disease, illegal capture for the pet trade and habitat loss as the culprits. …show more content…
The combination allows him and other scientists to see where chimps are most at risk and design conservation strategies.
Chimpanzees in the region used to live in an uninterrupted belt of forest and woodlands from Lake Tanganyika westward through Uganda and the Congo Basin to western Africa. In the early 1970s, 10 or so years after Jane Goodall first arrived in the region and began observing chimpanzees, that forest began to be cut down. Increased pressures on the land from a population explosion as well as poverty have led to clearing forest for agriculture and local logging as well as charcoal production.
"Today the belt per se has gone because it's being divided into increasingly small fragments," said Jane Goodall, who at 82 is still active in conservation efforts helmed by her namesake institute. These efforts near Gombe involve engaging the local communities in the conservation planning and monitoring process for the placement and protection of village forest reserves that support both people and chimpanzees. Central to that process has been getting everyone from the villagers to local government officials and other conservation groups to look at the same big …show more content…
Among the questions they ask are, as the land changes, how do forests, watersheds and chimpanzees respond, and where are the most opportunities to restore and protect critical watersheds and chimpanzee habitats? They then take that information back to the villages surrounding Gombe so the villagers can make science-based conservation and land-use decisions, such as where to restrict logging
"Chimpanzees are in crisis," said Lilian Pintea, a remote sensing specialist and vice president of conservation science for the Jane Goodall Institute, Vienna, Virginia, citing hunting and illegal bushmeat consumption, disease, illegal capture for the pet trade and habitat loss as the culprits. …show more content…
The combination allows him and other scientists to see where chimps are most at risk and design conservation strategies.
Chimpanzees in the region used to live in an uninterrupted belt of forest and woodlands from Lake Tanganyika westward through Uganda and the Congo Basin to western Africa. In the early 1970s, 10 or so years after Jane Goodall first arrived in the region and began observing chimpanzees, that forest began to be cut down. Increased pressures on the land from a population explosion as well as poverty have led to clearing forest for agriculture and local logging as well as charcoal production.
"Today the belt per se has gone because it's being divided into increasingly small fragments," said Jane Goodall, who at 82 is still active in conservation efforts helmed by her namesake institute. These efforts near Gombe involve engaging the local communities in the conservation planning and monitoring process for the placement and protection of village forest reserves that support both people and chimpanzees. Central to that process has been getting everyone from the villagers to local government officials and other conservation groups to look at the same big …show more content…
Among the questions they ask are, as the land changes, how do forests, watersheds and chimpanzees respond, and where are the most opportunities to restore and protect critical watersheds and chimpanzee habitats? They then take that information back to the villages surrounding Gombe so the villagers can make science-based conservation and land-use decisions, such as where to restrict logging