Due to its high diversity of natural resources, the corridor is home to a diverse range of wildlife species: baboons, red colobus monkeys, bushbuck, duikers, leopards, civets, genets, mongooses and many other mammals.
Dramatically, these landscapes remain the most critical sites for chimpanzee (“Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii”) since these are located in a critical junction for them.
Indeed, as the territory with the longest history of chimpanzee research, it is in the Gombe National Park that the Jane Goodall Institute established its important research project on chimpanzees. The site has over 40 years of behavioral and ecological data on at least one community of chimpanzee (surveys have been made outside these protected areas over the years also). Thus, the Eastern Chimpanzee is the main endangered and targeted species for conservation in the Gombe Stream Mukungu Rukamabasi corridor. The species depends on the miombo woodland habitats, located along the Ngonya and Beswe streams, thus traveling to Burundi near the Mkamba hill to feed and survive.

In the Burundi side of the corridor, as 90% of the Burundi population is directly dependent on agriculture for its livelihoods, it is urgent to address the remaining pressures and direct threats to forests, protected areas and biodiversity (in Burundi, most of the natural forests are confined to protected areas). Indeed, most of Burundi population is descendent of Batwa people, traditional hunters and gatherers who are fully dependent on the forest. Thus, it makes them at risk of food conflict in areas where chimpanzees are known to be full residents. More globally along the corridor area, some activities have been implemented to develop land use planning among villages and establish village forest reserves, river forest reserves and woodlots. Thus, iit is hopeful that the project “Restoring the Ecological Connectivity of Chimpanzees in Southern Burundi”, implemented by the Jane Goodall Institute, looks to rehabilitate the ecological functions between the Mukungu/Rukambasi Protected Landscape and the northern Vyanda Nature Reserve. This 15-months project, started in 2023, will restore a 120ha of corridor through the plantation of native seedlings produced in nurseries or by Assisted Natural Regeneration. Delimited by the local communities (perimeter), the corridor will enable the conservation of the chimpanzees, by conducting a daily ecological survey of the species. Also, the project will look at new ways of developing sustainable local economic activities to ensure a compatible future for the cohabitation of local populations and primates in the villages that are being crossed by the corridor.

Pays

Burundi, Tanzanie

Périmètre de l’action : Mishamo, Katumba, Kasulu and Kigoma Rural Districts in Nyonga and Beswe streams, Makamba region of Burundi (Mkamba hill, Rift Valley escarpment between Gombe National Park, Tanzania and South-West part of Burundi)

Surface : 31 643 ha

Bénéfices pour les communautés locales et gouvernance de l’action locale : The apparition of safaris and other touristic and cultural activities dedicated to species (such as chimpanzee trekkings and surveys, birds observation, summit trekking, foot safaris, walking safaris), together with public authorities’ efforts (district and regional levels) to engage on educational and capacity building activities for conservation, creates favorable conditions for the development of the territory.

A number of projects, such as the one implemented by “Conservation et Communauté de Changement Project” in the Burundi side of the corridor dedicates to restore ecological connectivity for the common benefit of chimpanzees and local communities, by planting and growing 500,000 trees by and for local communities around protected areas in the southern part of the country.

As mentioned by Wilson ML and al., in Goodall J. Research and Conservation in the Greater Gombe Ecosystem: Challenges and Opportunities, Biol Conserv. 2020 Dec, “to promote habitat restoration, Jane Goodall Institute facilitated participatory village land use planning, in which communities voluntarily allocated land to a network of Village Land Forest Reserves. Expected benefits to people include stabilizing watersheds, improving water supplies, and ensuring a supply of forest resources. Surveys and genetic analyses confirm that chimpanzees persist on village lands and remain connected to the Gombe population. Many challenges remain, but the regeneration of natural forest on previously degraded lands provides hope that conservation solutions can be found that benefit both people and wildlife. Conservation work in the Greater Gombe Ecosystem has helped promote broader efforts to plan and work for conservation elsewhere in Tanzania and across Africa.

[...] Conservation can provide many benefits: income from work associated with tourism and research; protection of watersheds; and protection of species that provide services such as pollination, seed dispersal, and pest control. Wild species may be valued for food, medicine, or other uses, or may be valued in their own right. However, the people who place the highest value on wild animals and places often live far from protected areas, and do not directly incur the costs of conservation. For conservation to succeed, a critical mass of people must perceive that conservation activities produce net benefits. An ethical approach to conservation seeks to find solutions that benefit both people and wildlife, and that takes special care to minimize impacts and maximize benefits to the people most likely to incur the costs of conservation. Engagement with local communities is essential, both to educate people about benefits that might not otherwise be obvious (e.g., watershed protection), and to work with local communities to find mutually beneficial solutions. Conservation work in the Greater Gombe Ecosystem has provided a model for chimpanzee conservation across Africa.”

Description des enjeux de cohabitation Homme / animal sur le corridor :

Financeurs : UICN (PPi programme), Jane Goodall Institute (TBC), Elpis Foundation…

Porteurs de projet : Gombe Stream Research Center, Jane Goodall Institute, Conservation and Community of Change (3C)

Autres acteurs : Office Burundais pour la Protection de l'Environnement (OBPE), TANAPA (management authority of the Gombe National Park)

En recherche de financement : oui

Type de financement(s) : The National Office of Tourism in Burundi is developing a National Tourism Strategy (due August 2010) to promote tourism around water-based activities in Tanganyika, and cultural tourism.

Interruptions constatées sur l’action de corridor : Some of the most destroyful activities in the corridor are bush fires, abusive logging, transhumance and aggregate extraction in quarries.

In Burundi, some farmers occupy the Mukungu-Rukambasi nature reserve with the complicity of forest rangers, to whom they pay bribes in order to gain free access to spaces in the forest to farm. In 2020, some agents of the National OBPE agency were found guilty of distributing cultivable land in the park. Since then, studies have shown that farming activities have dried out the land, which was once home to a fertile forest rich in vegetation.

Principaux obstacles à l’action et menaces : The area has been severely affected by the destruction of forest and woodland habitats outside the Gombe National Park driven by rapid population growth and immigration of refugees fleeing wars in Burundi and Congo. In 2003, change detection analysis showed that 50% of forests and woodlands had been converted to farmland, timber and charcoal production.

Also, poaching was probably a major factor in the decline of chimpanzees and other mammals in the area. Although chimpanzees may be caught during poaching for meat of other species, deliberate killing outside the park occurs because of crop raiding or as a preemptive measure. Indeed, primates are threatened by hunting activities orchestrated by the population in gangs. In Burundi, several emblematic animal species are now extinct, including elephants, giraffes, lions and rhinoceroses. Indeed, these main threats to forest ecosystems are deforestation, agriculture, bush fires, infrastructure development, mining and invasive species.

To address the challenges posed by population pressure— including encroachments and poaching— and to minimise the impacts of global climate change, the Jane Goodall Institute Tanzania (JGI-TZ) has partnered with the Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA) to improve park patrols. The effectiveness of park patrols has been strengthened through the use of modern technologies in data collection, including the use of satellite imagery, and GPS tracking.

While considerable efforts are continuously made by local communities, with the lead of the Jane Goodall Institute France, to strengthen ecological connectivity between protected areas in the Southern part of Burundi, by May 2024 (seedling of 335.000 native trees), scientific forecasts predict that the adjacent Tanganyika’s Lake will experience an unprecedented elevation of its water level, resulting in inundations of the surrounding Nyanza’s community in the country’s littoral (located at the north-western frontier of the corridor) and causing predictable damages on houses, road infrastructure and crops. As the Burundi Environmental Threats and Opportunities Assessment suggested in 2010, “Human exposure to floods can be reduced through urban and rural zoning and planning. New construction, especially critical facilities (water and sanitation, hospitals), should be sited out of floodplains. Development of wetlands should also proceed with caution as these areas provide a number of important ecosystem services, namely, absorbing and slowly releasing flood waters. Whether or not the increased prevalence of disease is directly attributed to climate change, there is also no harm in expanding current vector and water-borne disease prevention programs”.

Finally, it should be underlined that the consequences in terms of conflict, the fragmentation of chimpanzee habitats has other negative consequences for the survival of the species, such as the risk of high levels of inbreeding and increased stress due to contact with humans (disturbance, disease, etc.).

Références bibliographiques de l'action de corridor : Mjoo, J. S. and Stijfhoorn, E. 1998. Developing rural reforestation activities with local people’s participation: A case study of rural reforestation projects in Kasulu and Kigoma rural districts, Tanzania. In Chamshama, S.A.O. (ed.) 1998. Proceedings of the First Annual Forestry Research Workshop. Faculty of Forestry, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania.

Wilson ML, Lonsdorf EV, Mjungu DC, Kamenya S, Kimaro EW, Collins DA, Gillespie TR, Travis DA, Lipende I, Mwacha D, Ndimuligo SA, Pintea L, Raphael J, Mtiti ER, Hahn BH, Pusey AE, Goodall J. Research and Conservation in the Greater Gombe Ecosystem: Challenges and Opportunities. Biol Conserv. 2020 Dec

https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00SZ8F.pdf

https://tanzaniaspecialist.fr/parcs-nationaux/gombe-stream/

https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pnaeb430.pdf

https://www.programmeppi.org/en/interview-with-leonidas-nzigiyimpa-founder-of-conservation-et-communaute-de-changement-3c-burundi/

https://www.programmeppi.org/projects/restauration-de-la-connectivite-ecologique-des-chimpanzes-du-sud-du-burundi/

https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/sponsored/oasis-of-hope-for-chimps-humans-and-the-environment-4311168

https://www.there-for-you.com/en/donations/schutz-von-schimpansen-erhaltung-des-gombe-burundi-korridors-in-tansania/#info

Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT) 2022. Tanzania Wildlife Corridor Assessment, Prioritization, and Action Plan. Editors: Penrod, K., H. Kija, V. Kakengi, D.M. Evans, E. Pius, J. Olila and J. Keyyu. Unpublished report. Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT), Dodoma. 155 pp. + Appendices

Contacts de l’action : The Burundese Office for Environmental protection, Ministry of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock: obpe_burundi@yahoo.fr / Léonidas Nzigiyimpa, founder of Conservation et Communauté de Changement (3C), Burundi