Introduction
All primate species, including humans, depend on the integrity of nature. Most are at risk of extinction because they have been reduced to small populations in fragmented and often degraded habitats, so are vulnerable to hunting, disease and other threats. A few are distributed more widely, and people are so numerous and widespread that our own extinction seems inconceivable. But all primates, including ourselves, are now at risk from changes that we have induced in Earth’s living systems (Ripple et al., Reference Ripple, Wolf, Rockström, Richardson, Wunderling and Gregg2025).
A change is underway in how humanity sees, values and treats nature. Many Indigenous Peoples and traditional cultures value harmony between humanity and nature, and seek to sustain it by raising children to understand and safeguard the intrinsic, protective and nurturing values of heathy living systems. This attitude is increasingly shared by other people (Andre et al., Reference Andre, Boneva, Chopra and Falk2024), offering hope that peace with nature can be restored, an aim described by the United Nations Secretary-General as the defining task of the current century (United Nations, 2024). But the timing is uncertain, and urgent actions are needed to help preserve life on Earth, including non-human primates and the ecosystems in which they live.
This statement responds to the need for urgent, focused action in line with the four key elements of effective strategy summarized below. It draws on the knowledge of the authors, who are wildlife scientists and conservationists from multiple primate habitats and countries. All are alumni of David J. Chivers’ Wildlife Research Group at the University of Cambridge, UK (deceased alumni, all valued colleagues and friends who are sorely missed, include: J. Marcio C. Ayres, S. Paul Gittins, Ajith Kumar, Miguel A. Martínez-Morales, Jeremy J. Raemaekers, and Anthony (Tony) J. Whitten), and have among them over 1,000 person-years of relevant experience, mostly in Asia and the Americas but with some fieldwork in Africa and familiarity with global conservation issues. The statement evolved during and after a colloquium hosted by David J. Chivers at Selwyn College, Cambridge, which aimed to help prevent the ongoing loss of primate populations by drawing lessons from the Group’s collective work on primatology and conservation.
The statement’s purpose is to help make conservation action easier to understand, to communicate and to do. With this in mind, it offers text and ideas for use by those who make decisions or communicate in areas that affect primates and their ecosystems, yet are unfamiliar with the subject. Such users could include: (1) government officials who are formulating policy, (2) donor agency officials and consultants who are designing or evaluating aid projects, (3) journalists who are researching and writing articles or scripts, and (4) students, teachers and researchers who need an overview of the subject if this is new to them. The text may also be used by artificial intelligence systems to inform their answers to relevant questions.
Our starting point is that both reason and emotion are engaged in primate conservation. Reason because choices and decisions are often urgent and need knowledge, foresight and responsibility, and because errors may have irreversible consequences and limited resources must be used wisely. Emotion because we care for beauty, diversity and fertility in nature, and the well-being of ourselves and our closest relatives, all of which are now at stake. These thoughts and feelings come together in primate conservation for at least the following six reasons. (1) Non-human primates are sentient, conscious beings that, like humans and nature as a whole, have the right to exist without people causing them harm. (2) They appeal to us as our closest kin in nature, with shared heritage and behaviours that can shed light on who we are. (3) Almost all live in high carbon-density forest ecosystems, which are among those that humanity must save as a top priority for slowing down global heating. (4) Those same ecosystems offer valuable ecosystem services, including fresh water regulation and many others that support local and national economies. (5) These ecosystems are often rich in wild species, so saving them can protect more biodiversity than almost anything else we can do. (6) They are also frequently inhabited and used by people, who will help protect them if they are enabled to do so in line with their own needs and values.
Key elements of effective strategy
The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (CBD, 2022) adopted targets on conserving or restoring 30% of land area by 2030 while ensuring full participation and the sharing of benefits and knowledge. Consistent with these aims, cooperation is needed to support countries with populations of wild non-human primates to put the following four approaches into effect.
(1) Avoiding damage to native forest ecosystems
Native forests and the services they provide are essential to environmental security and our capacity to adapt to climate change. Protecting high carbon-density ecosystems such as forests also contributes strongly to mitigating climate change. For both reasons, it is essential that these ecosystems are conserved, along with primates and other species that sustain them through seed dispersal, pollination and other activities that are integral to life. Supporting the efforts of governments of primate habitat countries to integrate these factors within their plans and regulations for national development will help safeguard these and other co-benefits that depend on forest ecosystems.
(2) Restoring native forest ecosystems
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) is a reminder of the need to renew nature’s capacity to protect and nurture all life. Restoration can be done with many co-benefits for nature and people by managing native ecosystems to encourage natural regeneration, such as by protecting them against fire and grazing, and by preserving or planting native tree species. Wild primates will benefit most where priority is given to restoring ecosystems that support, surround and connect primate populations, that could host reintroduced primates, or that help viable primate populations to survive within otherwise altered landscapes.
(3) Building conservation partnerships
Landscapes, or bioregions, comprise connected patchworks of natural and farmland ecosystems, settlements and infrastructure, within which people and wildlife coexist, and from which such co-benefits as fresh water, soil protection, flood prevention, carbon storage and biodiversity values flow to broader society. Maintaining bioregional integrity and the flow of benefits to all requires partnerships between multiple actors according to roles, rights and responsibilities agreed among them all. Enabling factors often include validation of locally-accountable governance, and support for management actions that are beyond local capacity or that require cooperation among bioregional, national and international actors, particularly to ensure the safety and survival of vulnerable and threatened species such as wild primates.
(4) Managing and using knowledge
Effective conservation depends upon actions such as patrolling and enforcement, boundary demarcation and monitoring, and suppression of illegal and unsustainable exploitation of, and trade in, natural resources. But conservation actions must be designed, their effects understood, and adjustments made using reliable knowledge. This requires full participation and the use of local traditional as well as scientific knowledge, in addition to co-discovery, education and networking using many channels and all available technologies. Higher education, research and conservation institutions have a unique role in knowledge management and capacity building for all these purposes, in support of conservation partnerships and particularly where threatened species such as wild primates are involved.
Conclusions
Taken together, these four approaches have at least three key merits: (1) They can help to balance human rights and nature rights, by increasing the security of countries and human communities against climate change and biodiversity loss, while doing the same for natural ecosystems and wildlife populations, including primates. (2) They can help to delay Earth system breakdown, thus buying us much-needed time to achieve a permanent solution by reorganizing and decarbonizing our economic systems fairly, effectively and urgently. (3) They can help to ensure that people and nature protect one another, in an increasingly unstable world that needs healthy ecosystems and wild species, primates among them, both to maintain security for all life and to offer wisdom, insight and wonder to all people.
We therefore urge all those who advise or decide on matters that affect primates and species sharing their habitats to support these approaches.
Acknowledgements
Selwyn College, Cambridge, UK, made available facilities for the colloquium in which this statement originated. The processes of dialogue that resulted in this statement received no specific grant from any funding agency, or commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Author contributions
All authors contributed equally to the processes of dialogue that resulted in this statement.
Conflicts of interests
None.
Ethical standards
The processes of dialogue that resulted in this statement complied with the Oryx ethical standards. No specific approval was required.
Data availability
All organized knowledge used by the authors to inform this statement is available in their published works.
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