Dr. Jane Goodall, a UN peace ambassador called upon the government of Uganda to support the awareness on great apes, to spread to the 23 range states of the apes.
Goodall was speaking at the launch of an exhibition on the Great Apes at the Uganda Museum in Kampala which was organised by the Great Apes Survival programme and will run for three months.
Goodall has pioneered research at Gombe National Park in northern Tanzania, which led to greater understanding of the similarity between chimp and human behaviour.
Uganda has 5,000 out of an estimated 250,000 chimps in Africa, whose habitat is under threat from expansive agriculture. Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has half of the remaining global population of the 700 gorillas and the rest roam the Virungas that straddle Rwanda, DR Congo and Uganda (Mgahinga).
Gorillas and chimps are categorised as endangered species under the red data list, meaning that if nothing is done to stop habitat destruction, they would become extinct.
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By Kisibo Jackie
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