Imagine it’s drizzling and you are walking briskly out of a forest with a bundle of firewood on your head and a baby strapped to your back. You want to get home as soon as you can before you and your baby get drenched. But, as you get to the edges of the forest, a chimpanzee confronts you. It yanks the baby off your back and runs with it back into the forest.
The three women you went into the forest with moments earlier to pick firewood run for their dear lives – leaving you alone and frightened – weeping. This is exactly what happened to Irene Bako in western Uganda on July 10 this year.
“I was so terrified and cried for my baby,” Irene said. “I remained in the same place, weeping and praying that they (chimpanzees) don’t hurt my baby. My baby was also crying.”
Just two months before this incident, chimps snatched a baby from its mother on the fringes of the same forest, and by the time residents found the toddler in the jungle, the chimps had seriously damaged its private parts. Yet Bako could not enter the forest, challenge the beast and rescue her nine-month-old baby.
“I stayed outside the forest crying, and no one responded as it was drizzling,” she added. “But after more than two hours, one chimp came out of the forest and dumped my crying baby. I am still frightened.”
Chimps’ attacks on the increase as deforestation expands
Attacks on humans by chimps have become increasingly common in western Uganda over the last decade. The country, which is home to one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, has been losing on average 122,000 hectares of forests per year since 1990 largely to be able to cope with its continuously growing population.
According to the population census conducted in May this year, Uganda is now home to 45.9 million people, having increased by over 11 million people since 2014. More than half of this population is dependent not only on subsistence agriculture, which presents significant threats to forests but also lives in rural areas where conservation areas are located.
As populated areas extend into the forests, shrinking the natural habitat of chimpanzees, human-wildlife conflicts have grown increasingly frequent. According to the National Forest Agency, an estimated three to four attacks on humans by chimps have occurred annually over the last decade.
“We have registered three such attacks this year already,” Boaz Basigirenda, the Range Manager of Budongo Forest System, said.
Like other wildlife species, chimps are protected under Ugandan law but there have been cases of humans attacking and killing chimps in retaliation in recent years.
Dr Patrick Byakagaba, a natural resource and environmental governance specialist at Uganda’s Makerere University, said that as long as forests are being destroyed, chimps will continue to stray into crop fields and homes – attacking humans – as they seek to protect their shrinking habitats.
Donors step in
There are between 3,000 and 5,000 chimps mainly in Budongo and Kibale National Park in western Uganda. As they are a significant part of Uganda’s natural wealth, protecting them and their habitats will not only help to conserve these animals and other wildlife species living in Uganda but will also allow people to continue to enjoy environmental services from forests such as water retention and purification, soil erosion control, pest and disease control and protection from extreme weather conditions.
To prevent a possible escalation of the human-wildlife conflicts, some international development partners like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Union are working with Uganda to promote sustainable tourism through, among others approaches, protecting wildlife and providing clean energy cooking technologies to people like Bako in a country where over 70% of households rely on firewood for cooking. Providing clean cooking technologies is expected to reduce pressure on forests and decrease human-wildlife conflicts.
USAID is also currently funding the reopening of the boundaries of various forest reserves such as Kasaato, Kamurangi, Nyakarongo, Muhunga, Rukara, Nakuyazo and Kihaimira in the Budongo central forest system, which are home to chimps. Basigirenda said the boundaries were being reinforced with concrete pillars to prevent trespassing.
“These are visible pillars, and in terms of height, they are one meter above the ground and three feet deep into the ground,” he highlighted.
Wildlife protection likely to boost tourism
Uganda’s wildlife agency is also educating communities about the environmental benefits of forests and tourism – one of the country’s top foreign exchange-earners. For instance, Uganda earned US$1b from tourism last year. The sector also employs more than 600,000 Ugandans.
Uganda shares a percentage of the earnings from tourism with communities near conservation areas like forests and national parks by setting up public projects to encourage them to conserve these natural resources.
Paul Hatanga, the coordinator of the greater Virunga (which includes DR Congo, Rwanda and Uganda) landscape management at the World Wide Fund for Nature, a global environmental conservation agency, said the benefits of nature preservation go beyond income from tourism.
“There are many eco-tourism businesses around Kibaale National Park,” he added. “We need to develop chimp tracking opportunities in all areas where chimpanzees are, so we create business opportunities for the communities. This will help people realize the benefits of protecting them and their habitats.”
