Written by Dr. Benjamin Beck, director of the Gishwati Area Conservation Program and director of conservation at Great Ape Trust.
The Gishwati Forest Reserve in western Rwanda has only 3,665 acres, in various stages of growth. The Great Ape Trust Gishwati Area Conservation Program was established in 2007 to protect the forest before it totally disappeared, and then to begin to restore and expand it.
Our initial interest was to study and protect the small group of chimpanzees living there, and in just three years their numbers have grown from 13 to 19. Some were just too shy to have been counted in the early days of the study and just “appeared” later, but four youngsters have been born in the meantime, and none have been lost. This reverses a 50-year downward extinction spiral. The protected area of Gishwati has also increased, from 2,190 to 3,665 acres, through demarcation of legal boundaries and annexation of illegally occupied land. A primary component of the GACP work has been study of the behavioral ecology of the chimpanzees, aimed at discovering what they eat, how far they travel, where they make their nests, whether they use tools, and their health status. Dr. Rebecca Chancellor, principal investigator for the chimpanzee study, also amassed information on Gishwati’s climate and vegetation. GACP established a well-outfitted field station in the village of Kinihira, at the edge of the Gishwati Forest, and built a network of well-maintained research trails. (For a video interview with Dr. Chancellor discussing her research, go here.)
GACP staff has gained the trust and support of the local communities by providing employment, school programs, and technical and financial assistance to local cooperatives. A new ecovisitation program promises to bring additional income to the community.
All of this makes Gishwati a powerful magnet for visiting scientists and students. Gishwati is a “laboratory” for the study of how small imperiled populations of animals and plants struggle to survive on an “island” surrounded by hundreds of thousands of struggling farmers. Sadly, this is a not a rare situation around the globe today, but few study sites are as welcoming and supportive for scientific visitors as Gishwati.
Shane Mc Guinness traveled to Gishwati from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland to do his Master’s thesis research, titled “The socioeconomic impacts and biodiversity implications of crop raiding by primates in the Gishwati area, Rwanda.” Crop-raiding is a serious problem throughout the developing world, wherever forests and croplands meet. Mammals such as apes, monkeys and elephants leave the forest and invade fields, usually just before harvest, after months of back-breaking planting and cultivation. A single elephant or baboon troop can wipe out a whole year’s income in one day. Famers can do little other than shake pebble-filled cans or throw stones at the animals, and this usually doesn’t discourage the animals for long. Sometimes the raiders are killed with spears, poison, or traps. At Gishwati, Mc Guiness found that chimpanzees, mountain monkeys, and golden monkeys are the most frequently mentioned crop raiders. Maize (corn) and beans are their principal targets. Potatoes, whose edible portion grows underground, are not raided.
Mc Guinness interviewed 33 farmers working fields close to the forest’s edge. Their financial losses were considerable, but there are also social losses because adults and children have to guard the fields when they could be using their time for more creative and productive activities. But Mc Guinness found that children did not skip school to guard crops; children in the area attend half-day school sessions and are said to guard only during the other half of the day. He found that Gishwati farmers do not harm the apes and monkeys, but he concluded that they refrain from doing so more out of fear of punishment than out of compassion or support for conservation.
Mc Guinness’ thesis confirmed GACP’s earlier decision to help organize and fund a potato-farming cooperative, whose members planted only potatoes near the forest in 2010 while planting the more vulnerable maize and beans at least 500 feet away. The results of this experiment are being analyzed now. Perhaps, Mc Guinness speculates, losses from crop-raiding should be tolerated, and farmers compensated with revenue from ecotourism.
Simon Valle, of the university of Exeter in the U.K, also did his master’s research at Gishwati. Valle’s thesis, titled “Protected areas vs. multiple-use areas in Afromontane rain forest : modelling the trade-off” is now being reviewed for publication in a scientific journal. He studied the diversity of bird species at Gishwati, which as we have noted is a small forest fragment that has been heavily impacted by human activity. Valle found over 130 bird species at Gishwati, including some rare birds found only in this region. He thus concluded that properly managed multiple use areas could be effective for biodiversity conservation. Valle has contributed his list of bird species for use in our ecovisitation materials.
The National University of Rwanda requires that senior biology majors do a senior thesis in a protected area in central Africa. GACP hosted five seniors at Gishwati in 2010. Erasme Uyizeye’s thesis is titled “Census and activity budget of golden monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis kandti) in Gishwati Forest Reserve.” Golden monkeys, like chimpanzees, are internationally recognized as threatened species and their presence strengthens the argument for Gishwati’s protection. Uyizeye made heavy use of the trails created by the chimpanzee research team, and estimated that there were 18 groups of golden monkeys with a total of 199 individuals in Gishwati. Golden monkeys eat mainly leaves, and in Gishwati they prefer bamboo. They tend to stay near the bamboo groves and don’t travel as far or as often as golden monkeys in the Volcanoes National Park in northern Rwanda. Uyizeye speculates that since Gishwati is more disturbed than Volcanoes, there is more bamboo. Thus the Gishwati monkeys don’t have to travel far to find their favorite food. We might be able to lead ecovisitors to see golden monkeys by taking them to bamboo groves.
Herman Uwizeyimana did his thesis on Gishwati’s mountain monkeys, Cercopithecus l’hoesti, with emphases and methods similar to Uyizeye’s. This is not surprising since Dr. Chancellor was the site supervisor for both students and helped them determine their methodology. Uwizeyimana estimated that there were 152 mountain monkeys in Gishwati, and that they ate more than 40 different plant species, mostly the leaves of various trees, and “spiced up” their diet with a few fruits, lichens, and mushrooms. At least when the two studies were conducted, the golden monkeys and mountain monkeys seemed to use diametrically opposite sides of the Reserve, perhaps reflecting where their preferred foods were located.
Gilbert Muvunankiko studied several species of turacos for his thesis research. He saw great blue, black-billed and Ross’ turacos, all large, noisy, and colorful fruit-eating birds. As the fruit passes through their digestive tracts, these birds are flying seed dispersers, and thus play an important role in maintaining and restoring forest health. Turacos will attract bird-watchers to Gishwati.
Aimée Bayikunde surveyed the trees, shrubs, lianas, and herbaceous plants of Gishwati, documenting 151 native species, in her thesis titled “Assessment of Gishwati Forest disturbance based on plant diversity”. She concludes that although some of the economically most valuable trees are rare, most components of the forest have survived and the forest is regenerating under protection. But fast-growing non-native trees, planted to reduce erosion, may retard the process. Eric Dusenge specifically studied natural regeneration of the forest habitat of the Gishwati chimpanzees. He also found that native species of trees and other plants are regenerating naturally, without human assistance, in areas that have been previously disturbed within the Gishwati Forest. Species diversity is still higher in undisturbed parts of the forest, but species that are important as chimpanzee food sources and for traditional medicine ingredients are recovering. These theses both suggest that if we can prevent further destruction or perturbation, disturbed forest areas will recover without expensive reforestation efforts, although full recovery will take decades.
Great Ape Trust and its Gishwati Area Conservation Program are science-driven, meaning that we learn about our world by conducting scientific research, and use the results to guide our efforts to protect and restore Gishwati and its biodiversity. Research by visiting scientists and students substantially increases the amount of available information. By hosting visiting scientists and students we maximize return on the considerable investment we have made in infrastructure at Gishwati. Hosting and mentoring Rwandan students also contribute to building scientific capacity in Rwanda.
