By MILLICENT MWOLOLO

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JGI-TZ serves the mission ‘to understand and protect chimpanzees, other apes, and their habitats, and to work towards creating an informed and compassionate critical mass of people who will help to create a better world of people, other animals, and our shared environment.’

Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans. Unfortunately, their numbers in the wild are decreasing at an alarming rate. Currently, chimpanzee is categorised as one of the endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Thus, in recognising chimps are in peril, July 14 of each year is dedicated for humanity to join hands to make sure that chimpanzees' status is promoted and that everyone understands the need of protecting them.

The day coincides with Dr Jane Goodall`s work in Gombe Stream National Park. It was July 14, 1960, when Dr Goodall first arrived on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, at Kakombe Valley of the then Gombe Stream Game Reserve.

She set up a tented camp and immediately started pioneering long-term behaviour study of wild chimpanzees in their native habitats. Today, the Jane Goodall Institute Tanzania (JGI - TZ), with a presence in Tanzania, Uganda, DRC, Republic of Congo, Guinea, Senegal and Mali, continues to conduct chimpanzee research and community-cantered conservation programmes.

The World Chimpanzee Day was created to increase awareness about chimpanzees and the importance of protecting man’s closest living relatives. By doing so, it helps people to get involved in various activities towards improving chimpanzee conservation and minimising threats that endanger their lives.

Tanzania has been continually championing conservation efforts for a healthy planet where people make compassionate choices to live sustainably and in harmony with each other, chimpanzees, other animals, and the environment, through the Jane Goodall Institute Tanzania (JGI-TZ). The JGI-TZ is a reputable and rapidly expanding non-governmental organisation committed to wildlife research, conservation, socioeconomic development, and environmental education.

The institute’s conservation strategies are specifically designed to mitigate or eliminate contributing factors and direct threats that put chimpanzees and their habitats at risk. Founded in 1977, JGI-TZ advances the vision and work of its founder Dr Jane Goodall by continuing the chimpanzee research and by inspiring communities to conserve the natural world we all share, explains Dr Deus Mjungu, the Director of Research at the Gombe Stream Research Center (GSRC), where he oversees all the projects.

The major threats to chimpanzees in Tanzania are habitat loss and fragmentation, resulting in isolated populations and low genetic diversity.

Disease transmission from nearby human communities and deaths from human-wildlife conflict over crops are also potential threats. Poor habitat quality may promote disease outbreaks in chimps, while increase in contact between chimps and humans may increase risks of disease transmission to chimps and compromise their survival.

Chimpanzees eat variety of foods. Like humans, they are omnivores, but the majority of their food is wild fruits, especially ripe ones. Climate change alters rainfall patterns and affects temperature and humidity, all these affect the flowering and fruiting patterns which in turn affects chimpanzee food, negatively or positively.

Drier and hotter weather is likely to affect chimpanzees negatively as they do to human communities. But when we conserve forests, which chimpanzees inhabit, we are also reducing the impacts of climate change because we are maintaining the ecological set-up for other species, and protecting biodiversity in general, as well, Dr Mjungu emphasises.

It is for this very reason that the JGI-TZ put emphasis in conserving forests in Western Tanzania.

Increase in human population has seen encroachment on forest land, the natural habitat of chimpanzees. This has further increased habitat degradation and fragmentation as people put more pressure on forests. Increased forest fragmentation may limit movement of chimpanzees between populations, and this may lead to reduction in chimpanzees’ gene pool. As a result, chimpanzee populations may become isolated and precipitated, leading to extinction.

Being a territorial species, destruction of the habitat may force neighbouring chimp communities to live in close proximity. This increases chances of aggression between communities, which sometimes may result in killings.

Chimpanzees live in communities of up 200 individuals. In a community, chimps tend to join or split in sub-groups as they want day by day. Normally, it is hard to find all chimps of a community in the same place all the time. In a community, males are more social than females, males spend more time together while females prefer to spend time with their offspring. Unlike in many primates, male chimps stay in their natal community and are involved in territorial defence while females transfer to new communities when they reach reproductive age.

JGI-TZ priority strategies to conserve chimps include protecting chimpanzees from disease, trafficking and killing, ensuring healthy habitats, and promoting alternative livelihoods to people living close to chimpanzee habitats. There are three ways in which JGI-TZ is protecting chimpanzees. First is through chimp research at the GSRC, then there is community led conservation, and through the roots & shoots youth-involvement.

The GSRC is a wildlife research programme in Gombe National Park. Initiated by Dr Goodall in 1960, it continues to conduct chimpanzee research that helps to increase our understanding of the primates and the challenges they face.

A modern laboratory under the GSRC in Gombe Stream National Park helps to understand disease risks and proper management, when it happens.

“We are able to share the outcomes of chimpanzee research with decision-makers and in one way or another help to protect chimpanzees to thrive through challenges,” explains Dr Mjungu. This ensures that the welfare of chimpanzees is taken care of.

Part of the research work in Gombe includes writing scientific papers on behaviour, life and natural history of species and biodiversity. The papers have been published in different journals. The institute has also facilitated development and commissioning of Gombe Management Plan (GMP), which has improved the conservation status of the park, ecological monitoring, surveillance and community engagement.

The institute’s long-term chimpanzee records (“B-’’ records) has remained the milestone towards behaviour research that has revolutionalised and transformed chimpanzee studies in the wild, in both community groups, family, parental care, individual life history and ecological niche to many parts of Africa.

Through the Landscape Conservation in Western Tanzania (LCWT), a community-based conservation programme operating in Gombe, Masito & Ugalla areas in western Tanzania, the community is being assisted to develop sustainable practices on land use, family planning, and conservation. This helps in protecting the forest, which is home to the chimpanzees.