Epilogue - by Prof. Craig B. Stanford

Planet without Apes (2012)

ISBN : 978-0-674-06704-2

 It's 2150.

The world has changed

in ways no futurist can

predict. . .Global population

growth, long forecasted to

plateau around 12 billion,

has yet to level off.  The

Human Tsuanimi has swept clean

much of the natural world that 

in the early 21st century we

had still hope to save for

posterity. . .For example

Indonesia is a developed 

country now, with cities

replacing all of the forests.

In the few-and-far between

patches of forest that remain

in Africa, many are empty of

larger animals. Large mammals

and other animals must now be kept

safely under guard in fenced,

patrolled sanctuaries that are

little more than large zoos. . .

Chimps have fared worse than

lowland gorillas, perhaps due

to their need for relatively

undisturbed habitat full of

fruit trees.  Their numbers

plummeted during the outbreaks

of Ebola that hit central

Africa hardest during the

mid-twenty-first century

and took a further hit from the

civil war that split the former

Democratic Republic of Congo

into three separate nations.

If apes are reduced to a total

global population of only a few

thousand in 2150, by 2250 they

will be all but gone from the

Earth. . .Only by preserving

enough of their habitat can 

we hope to have wild great

apes on Earth a hundred or 200

years from now. . .