In the wild certainly not. A few years before bonobos, gorillas and orangutans will also be extinct. They will also have gone from the nature the elephants, lions, tigers, rhinos, hippos and most large terrestrial mammals.

The natural habitat of these species has been devastated by human population growth. Consider that Africa, the continent where there is still much of these species in the wild, should have more than two billion people on 2050, they will need to eat, work and have housing. All this will be done at the expense of natural resources that still remain for the next 35 years. The forests will be destroyed by their sale value and the land will be used to produce food. All beings living there, in the last unspoiled frontiers of the planet, will be exposed to the advancement of human civilization and will disappear.

The absurdity of this situation is that nothing serious is being really done now – out of the same old rhetoric – to save these species. It is known that, due to the rate of destruction of nature, it is inevitable no one will survive beyond human. Nevertheless, nobody has a real plan to prevent this from happening and when it happens, there is no alternative to keeping alive some of these extraordinary species.

If we reflect rapidly around the world, we see that in 2050 not more than a few dozens chimpanzees will be existing in the wild or in proper captivity, which does not ensure that years later the species can reach the total extinction. In 2050, in North America, there will be only a few numbers of chimpanzees in decent captivity, and they will not resist too much because most were subjected to medical torture that destroyed their bodies. In Latin America, outside Brazil, there will be no more chimpanzees. The zoos – the few that still exist – will die. In Europe, there is no decent captivity to keep some live specimens. In Asia, it is even worse. There is no reproduction in the existing captivity; then, in 35 years, all of them will no longer exist.

When I’m with chimpanzee Caesar and his sisters, all under 8 years old, I think maybe this chimp family is the only one that can overcome the tragic year of 2050.

The incompetence of mankind, its leaders and organizations to draw some serious and realistic project to save at least representatives of a species, as Homo troglodytes, with whom we share genetic identity, is a proof that human generations born today will receive from us a tragic gift: a devastated planet that will also lead themselves to premature death, as it caused the disappearance of their brothers chimpanzees in less than a century.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

President, GAP Project International