01 August 2010
Murder in the Congo: the human shadow under fire
18 August 2006
Comment: Te Waha Nui Online
Chimpanzees, often known as the human shadow because of their remarkable resemblance, may be facing the brink of extinction. Cameron Broadhurst looks at the irreversible damage we are having on the precious primates.
What kind of creature would try to kill its own shadow?
In the Congo basin, near what we often call the birthplace of mankind, is our closest animal relative: the Bonobo chimpanzee. These primates share 98.4 per cent of our DNA.
They often walk on two legs and are renowned both for their sexual intimacy and ability to peacefully coexist. Some locals say they are trying to become like people.
And indigenous legends talk of them as an “almost human shadow”.
But as old African taboos break down, aggravated by pressures from industrial logging, they are being slaughtered in the commercial bushmeat trade.
Without major changes, they are headed for extinction.
If Africa is our birthplace, it seems our civilization is threatening the womb — we are making the world which gave birth to mankind unsafe for our closest siblings.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world another of the great apes bears the brunt of our “civilised” society.
Vast swathes of Indonesian forest cut down for palm oil plantations encroach daily on the world of the orangutans. Eighty percent of the habitat of these great apes has already disappeared.
They are now shot as pests if they intrude on the plantations. The result: up to 5000 of them lost every year.
Some years ago I sat outside a cage in South India, holding a bar with my left hand while a powerful 80kg chimpanzee played with the fingers of my right hand.
That close, the kinship to humans is undeniable.
That close, it’s like another person in disguise.
But when she finished toying with my fingers, she had to turn back to her own world.
And I, reluctantly, to mine.
The link between the world of Homo sapiens and the higher primates is both profound and mysterious.
Emotionally, socially, and genetically they are as close as animals can be to humans.
Yet our deeply confused priorities are resulting in a kind of ethnic cleansing — but by species.
Any sentient life that cannot keep up with human demands finds itself on the brink of extinction, and we go on mercilessly coveting the remaining sanctuaries.
In a desire for what? For wood? For palm oil?
We would commit animal genocide and irrevocably change the face of the planet for the sake of timber?
The inability of mankind to deal with the devastation the legal and blackmarket economies wreak is a sure symptom of our confused identity.
We think and act like we are creatures of the market, but we aren’t. We too, are creatures of the wild.
Like extensions of the original ecosystem, human cultures are worlds within a world.
But in this ecosystem there are creatures with their own worlds, whose needs are not lesser than ours.
If we can’t pay attention to this, the continued indifference to our place in the world will bring further suffering not just to our animal relatives, but by natural extension, to ourselves.
