ABSTRACT
The living descendants of ancestral primates evolved during millions of years of natural environmental changes. Shifting continents altered global temperatures and rainfall patterns, creating and eliminating ecological niches. The more recent Pleistocene glaciations and interglaciations, dating back nearly two million years, led tropical forests to contract and expand, confining and then extending primate habitats. Yet, in less than a century, the devastating effects of exploding human populations and our activities have brought about the greatest challenge yet for primates. Unless human activities undergo dramatic changes, there is little doubt that many primates now classified as endangered will soon become extinct, or that other threatened and vulnerable primates will follow in their footsteps (see Chapter 3, Table 3.2). More stringent policies to protect primates and their ecological communities are clearly needed if we are to save them from extinction. For those primates whose populations have already been reduced to critically low levels, concomitant management programs will play an increasingly vital role.
