James Mollison: Playground

From Jane Goodall's Introduction: 'In 1859 Darwin shocked much of the world with his theory of evolution. Most people now accept the idea that we have evolved not from the modern great apes - chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans - but a common ancestor: a chimp-like human-like creature who lived some six to seven million years ago. Recent research has revealed startling similarities in the structure of DNA in apes and humans. We differ from chimpanzees by only about one per cent. Chimpanzees and bonobos are closer to humans than they are to gorillas. All three African great apes show more similarities to us than to orangutans.'In most of the places where they range, the great apes face extinction within the next ten to fifteen years if we do not act to save them. There were probably close to two million chimpanzees across Africa 100 years ago. Today there are no more than 150,000. They are declining in numbers as a result of ever-growing human populations, constantly...