Research & Conservation
The Cantanhez Chimpanzee Project conducts interdisciplinary research that spans Conservation Science, Ecology, Animal Behaviour, Anthropology and Computer Science to answer fundamental and applied questions that help understand and manage threatened wildlife in Cantanhez National Park
For critical information on the presence and distribution of wildlife and how it changes in response to human activities, we are combining traditional biodiversity survey methods with genetic surveys, novel applications of technology, and AI to process large datasets. We are also using molecular approaches to survey infectious disease occurrence in wildlife populations to inform One Health strategies. Our research aims to understand how wildlife are modifying their behaviour to exploit this unique forest-farm-mangrove-savanna landscape, including cultural diversity between different chimpanzee communities, how primates adapt their feeding ecology to exploit human resources, and the incorporation of alcohol in their diets through frugivory. We employ social science approaches to understand people’s behaviours and ecological knowledge including the ways people think about different topics like disease and the wildlife they share their landscape with. Ultimately, our work aims to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of human-wildlife coexistence and understand how people and wildlife respond and adapt to each other in a changing landscape.
For more information see our publication page.
We employ a variety of methods from the biological and social sciences to answer cutting-edge scientific questions that require an interdisciplinary approach
We’ve taken the decision not to habituate chimpanzees and other wildlife to researcher presence (that would enable close behavioural follows) as we do not want to reduce their fear of people in this shared landscape or accidentally spread respiratory viruses and other diseases. This means that we rely on remote, noninvasive methods, including camera traps, bioacoustic monitors and molecular techniques, and cutting edge analyses to answer complex ecological questions.
The Cantanhez Chimpanzee Project works at different spatial scales – local, landscape, national and regional – to achieve our conservation objectives.
Main Conservation Threats
The 1067km2 agroforest landscape of Cantanhez National Park, Guinea-Bissau, is home to 25,000 people most of whom rely on subsistence agriculture and access to natural resources, and provides critical habitat for threatened wildlife, including the Critically Endangered chimpanzee. The main threats to biodiversity conservation are:
Habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation
Habitat loss is considered the main conservation threat to terrestrial mammals worldwide. In Cantanhez, cashew farming has resulted in the deforestation of large areas coupled with extensive habitat fragmentation and isolation, as well as the conversion of fallow areas on a crop rotation system to permanent cashew plantations. In addition to changing the distribution and availability of resources, forest loss and fragmentation increase human access to new areas which can increase illegal hunting and trade of wildlife. Deforestation also interacts with climate change, for example by changing the local temperature and freshwater availability.
Illegal hunting and trade
The main reasons for hunting by people are to obtain wild meat, to trade in live individuals, for traditional medicine, and for crop protection. In Cantanhez, numerous taxa, including primates and ungulates, are hunted using guns and wire snares. Hunting occurs for subsistence or commercial reasons, with some wildlife being killed and transported for sale in urban markets. In Cantanhez, there are strict beliefs that prevent the hunting of chimpanzees for meat. However, cable snares set up for other animals can injure and even kill chimpanzees.
Negative human-wildlife interactions & conflicts
Wild animals can threaten human livelihoods and wellbeing through the loss or damage of human crops, livestock depredation and actual or perceived risks to physical safety. In anthropogenic landscapes, wild mammals experience increased risks of direct and indirect mortality (including through hunting, retaliatory killings, snares), lost foraging opportunities, and increased stress. Frequent and close human-wildlife interactions also increase the risks of zoonotic transmission of pathogens between people, wildlife, livestock, and domestic animals. In Cantanhez, wildlife use agricultural areas and settlements in search of food, and people use forest areas to access water, wild plants and fishery products and meat. Direct and indirect interactions between people and wildlife in Cantanhez is therefore high, and is increasing year-on-year.
Infectious diseases
Many viruses, bacteria, and protozoa circulate in wildlife with little to no consequence for animal and human health; however, some are known to cause diseases that can sometimes be passed from animal to humans or vice versa. Tropical agroforest landscapes such as Cantanhez have a high diversity of pathogens and wildlife, and humans and wildlife regularly overlap in their use of space and resources resulting in high potential exposure to pathogens. Due to their coexistence with local human communities and phylogenetic proximity, nonhuman primates, particularly great apes, are important sources and sentinels of disease in humans, and the transmission of human pathogens to great apes is of major conservation concern.
What are we doing to help tackle conservation threats?
In line with the Cantanhez Mammal Action Plan, the Cantanhez Chimpanzee Project is working with the Institute for Biodiversity and Protected Areas (IBAP) and local communities to:
- Monitor biodiversity including changes in response to human activities
- Establish areas for habitat protection and restoration
- Increase law enforcement capacity to encourage the sustainable use of resources
- Strengthen coordination between stakeholders and increase conservation research capacity
- Enhance human livelihoods and wellbeing through conflict mitigation and better capacity for adaptation
- Integrate a One Health approach
- Integrate biodiversity and conservation in school education and raise public awareness
If you are interested in helping to fund ongoing conservation activities in this unique landscape, please reach out to the project directors
Partners & Support
