Jeannette Batamuliza
Other projects
8 Sep 2016
Influence of Food Availability on the Distribution of the Eastern Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in Nyungwe Forest National Park (NNP), Rwanda
13 Jul 2018
Promoting Sustainable Conservation of the Eastern Chimpanzees in Nyungwe National Park, Rwanda through Education and Raising Community Awareness
15 Jul 2020
Promoting Conservation of the Eastern Chimpanzees of Nyungwe National Park through Creating Income Generating Activities (IGAs) to its Surrounding Communities
15 Feb 2022
Engaging and Empowering Communities for Sustainable Wildlife Management and Biodiversity Conservation of Nyungwe National Park (NNP), Rwanda
Nyungwe National Park (NNP) is one of Rwanda's four national parks and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This park is home to 13 primate species, accounting for 12% of all African mainland primate species, including the near-endemic and endangered Eastern chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii), which is regarded as the park's flagship and umbrella species.
Chimpanzee in Nyungwe National Park. ©Jeannette Batamuliza.
Despite the park's evident ecological and economic importance, chimpanzees and other park biodiversity are under threat, with neighbouring populations playing a significant role due to their reliance on park resources and limited understanding, and the lack of awareness and ownership.
As a result, this project was created with the goal of promoting the long-term conservation of chimpanzees and the park's biodiversity by disentangling the local community from the park by providing alternative sources of income and educating them to increase their understanding, awareness and ownership.
Alternative livelihoods are a frequent technique for reducing community reliance on park resources (Van Vliet 2011), and such initiatives have increased in frequency across West, East, and Central Africa during the 1990s (Abernethy et al. 2013). Poaching and illegal tree cutting have been identified as one of the most serious threats to tropical forest biodiversity globally (Leverington et al. 2010; Maxwell et al. 2016), posing a significant threat even to remote forest areas (Abernethy et al. 2013). Similar threats are being observed on the chimpanzees of Nyungwe National Park, with illegal tree cutting and poaching being the most common ones. This has an impact on chimpanzees by destroying or reducing their habitat, as well as decreasing their food availability and abundance.
The project's beneficiaries will be chosen based on their proximity to the park and their socio-economic classes, with priority being given to the communities classified in 1&2 social economic classes (the poorest ones) and the women who dropped out due to early pregnancies in the last 5 years and don't have means to care for their children and themselves, and these kids ended up not going to school and becoming street kids, threatening biodiversity.
For the project's long-term contribution to the conservation of NNP's chimpanzees and other biodiversity, the cooperatives will pledge to care for piglets and give a certain number of the piglets to the next wave of beneficiaries who meet the criteria. The cooperative will make the commitment in front of local government and park authorities, with the project's researchers present to witness the agreement.
Header image: A baby chimpanzee with his mother. ©Jeannette Batamuliza.