Jane Goodall

We know that chimpanzees and some other creatures can recognize themselves in mirrors, self as opposed to other.

They have a sense of humor.

And these are the kind of things which traditionally have been thought of as human prerogatives.

This teaches us a new respect, and it's a new respect not only for the chimpanzees, I suggest, but some of the other amazing animals with whom we share this planet.

Once we're prepared to admit that, after all, we're not the only beings with personalities, minds, and above all, feelings, and then we start to think about ways we use and abuse so many other sentient, sapient creatures on this planet, it really gives cause for deep shame.

at least for me.

So, the sad thing is that these chimpanzees, who perhaps taught us more than any other creature a little humility, are in the wild disappearing very fast.

They're disappearing for the reasons that all of you in this room know only too well, the deforestation, the growth of human populations needing more land.

They're disappearing because some timber companies go in with clear cutting,

They're disappearing in the heart of their range in Africa because the big multinational logging companies have come in and made roads, as they want to do in Ecuador and other parts where the forests remain untouched, to take out oil or timber.

and this has led in Congo Basin and other parts of the world what's known as the bushmeat trade this means that although for hundreds perhaps thousands of years people have lived in those forests or whatever habitat it is in harmony with their world just killing the animals they need for themselves and their families now suddenly because of the roads the hunters can go in from the towns they shoot everything

Every single thing that moves that's bigger than a small rat, they sun dry it or smoke it.

Now they've got transport.

They take it on the logging trucks or the mining trucks into the towns where they sell it.

And people will pay more.

for bush meat, as it's called, than for domestic meat.

It's culturally preferred.

And it's not sustainable.

And the huge logging camps in the forest are now demanding meat.

So the pygmy hunters in the Congo Basin, who've lived there with their wonderful way of living for so many hundreds of years, are now corrupted.