With the Help of Outside Money, Locals and Apes Have Finally Reached an Agreement

In Uganda the conflict between apes and humans is one that causes one species to win at the cost of the other, and the loser is almost always the apes.  Recently, however, farmers in Kyamalera have learned to coexist with our closest relatives.  Apes, which used to be thought of as a commodity for bushmeat and the pet trade, are no longer just thought of as a source for poaching.  The tourism trade has bolstered the local economy by enabling locals to sell crafts and locally grown goods to the influx of outsiders with money.  The Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust has given these farmers start up money to begin making crafts to sell instead of poaching as a means of subsistence.  In Hoima where most of the forests are privately owned, organizations such as the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust have been giving money to 84 different private owners of the forests to provide them with an alternative means of survival that does not require encroachment into the forest.

A dead chimpanzee lying on the forest floor.

An example of local crafts that can be found in Uganda.  With the influx of support, local farmers are able to sell goods such as these rather than poaching the great apes.

A bushmeat market where most poached animals are sold so that local citizens can survive.

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Snail farming may save African apes from poaching

Only about 300 apes survive in Nigeria’s Cross River National Park on the Cameroon border. Poaching from nearby poor villagers searching for food or meat to sell has reduced the rare apes’ numbers to about one-tenth of their population a century ago. “These are some of the most endangered apes in Africa,” says James Deutsch of the Wildlife Conservation Society. “The people are poor and protein is hard to find, so they will eat gorillas.”

Over the past six months, though, a pilot effort has trained and equipped eight poacher families to farm African giant snails, a local delicacy about 5 inches across, with funding from the Arcus Foundation of Kalamazoo, Mich., a great-ape conservation group. “Hunters will eat anything they find,” Deutsch says, but the likely profit from snail farming, about $413 a year, exceeds the profits from bushmeat trade, for which one gorilla’s meat earns poachers about $70.

Chimp infant, Cross River N.P, Nigeria (Credit: Cyril Ruoso)

African Giant Snail

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