IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group

More about the Specialist Group

Active throughout the tropical world, working in dozens of nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the PSG promotes and supports research on the ecology and conservation of the lorises, pottos, galagos, lemurs, tarsiers, monkeys and apes that make up the primate radiation. Now more than ever they need our intervention: 464, close to two thirds of the known 720 species and subspecies, are now categorized as threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species – 312 are Endangered or Critically Endangered.  The double hammer of hunting and forest devastation has brought some species to within a few dozen heads of final extinction.

Primates are essentially tropical and subtropical, naturally occurring in four major regions: the Neotropics (Mexico and Central and South America), Africa, Madagascar and Asia. Just a few species breach the Tropic of Capricorn (marginally in southern Brazil, northern Argentina and Paraguay, southern Africa and the southern tip of Madagascar), and the Tropic of Cancer (in the northernmost reaches of their ranges in north Africa and east continental Asia and Japan). All the living primates of each region are today unique to those regions with one exception, the north African Hamadryas Baboon in the Arabian Peninsula, but quite possibly introduced there by humans in historic times.

The PSG works on behalf of these and all other primates by supporting field research, conservation measures and educational programs in those regions where primates still occur. The PSG’s primary responsibility is to evaluate the conservation status of all primate species and subspecies, working with current information from experts in the field. These assessments contribute to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, a comprehensive summary of threats to the world’s biodiversity. In addition, the PSG produces Action Plans targeted to particular species or groups of species. Much larger and more detailed than the general assessments, these Action Plans serve to summarize the available knowledge on a particular species group and to lay out a program for their conservation, and most importantly they are focused on finding the financial resources to carry out the needed actions to ensure survival.

Beyond these core functions, the PSG provides a unique forum for scientific publications through the newsletters and journals it sponsors, which are widely read by primatologists and often contain the only information available on rare and poorly-studied species. The PSG produces a journal or newsletter for each of the four global primate regions — Africa, Asia, Madagascar and the Neotropics — as well as an overarching journal, Primate Conservation, which publishes research on threatened primates from around the world. The PSG also raises funds for small grants to support field research and surveys, field courses for habitat country students and professionals, environmental education and local community conservation initiatives, the maintenance of field study sites, and population surveys and ranger patrols in protected areas.