Research stations as conservation instruments provide long-term community benefits through social connections

The paper considers the benefits accruing from field research stations and how they might promote community-park relationships. In Kibale National Park (Uganda), study findings show that the presence of the research station provides long-term direct employment for 52 people, and indirect, cascading benefits for up to 720 people several kilometers away. While benefits of the research station do not eliminate community-park conflict, the long-term presence of researchers and the gains to local people associated with them is an underappreciated and important means for integrating the goals of biodiversity protection and local community investment. Benefits such as healthcare and education are also linked.Canada Research Chairs Program,Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada,Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les TechnologiesRathlyn Fieldwork Award,the National Geographic Society

Activités illégales dans/autour d’une aire protégée: cartographie, enquêtes sur la consommation de protéines et sensibilisation à la conservation des chimpanzés

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Wildlife and spiritual knowledge at the edge of protected areas: raising another voice in conservation

International audienceInternational guidelines recommend the integration of local communities within protected areas management as a means to improve conservation efforts. However, local management plans rarely consider communities knowledge about wildlife and their traditions to promote biodiversity conservation. In the Sebitoli area of Kibale National Park, Uganda, the contact of local communities with wildlife has been strictly limited at least since the establishment of the park in 1993. The park has not develop programs, outside of touristic sites, to promote local traditions, knowledge, and beliefs in order to link neighboring community members to nature. To investigate such links, we used a combination of semi­directed interviews and participative observations (N= 31) with three communities. While human and wildlife territories are legally disjointed, results show that traditional wildlife and spiritual related knowledge trespasses them and the contact with nature is maintained though practice, culture, and imagination. More than 66% of the people we interviewed have wild animals as totems, and continue to use plants to medicate, cook, or build. Five spirits structure human­wildlife relationships at specific sacred sites. However, this knowledge varies as a function of the location of local communities and the sacred sites. A better integration of local wildlife­friendly knowledge into management plans may revive communities' connectedness to nature, motivate conservation behaviors, and promote biodiversity conservation

Illegal Harvesting within a Protected Area: Spatial Distribution of Activities, Social Drivers of Wild Meat Consumption, and Wildlife Conservation

International audienceThe African tropical forests host an inestimable number of resources, including food,medicine, vegetal and animal species. Among them, chimpanzees are threatened with extinction byhuman activities affecting their habitats, such as forest product harvesting, and/or more directly,snaring and trafficking. We aimed to better understand the spatial distribution of these illegalactivities, and the reasons for setting snares and consuming wild meat in an agricultural landscape(subsistence farming and cash crops) densely populated near a protected area (Sebitoli, Northernpart of Kibale National Park, Uganda). To carry out this study, we combined GPS records of illegalactivities collected with group counts (in total, n = 339 tea workers, 678 villagers, and 1885 children)and individual interviews (n = 74 tea workers, 42 villagers, and 35 children). A quarter of illegalactivities collected (n = 1661) targeted animal resources and about 60% were recorded in specific areas(southwest and northeast) of the Sebitoli chimpanzee home range. Wild meat consumption, which isillegal in Uganda, is a relatively common practice among participants (17.1% to 54.1% of respondentsdepending on actor types and census methods). However, consumers declared that they eat wildmeat unfrequently (0.6 to 2.8 times per year). Being a young man coming from districts contiguousto Kibale National Park particularly raises the odds of consuming wild meat. Such an analysiscontributes to the understanding of wild meat hunting among traditional rural and agriculturalsocieties from East Africa

Evaluating a Union between Health Care and Conservation: a Mobile Clinic Improves Park-People Relations, Yet Poaching Increases

It is widely viewed that by providing employment or services to neighbouring communities, a protected area may increase positive attitudes towards conservation and discourage encroachment, but this is rarely tested. Our research examines this view by evaluating local attitudes towards the park and incidence of encroachment before and after the implementation of a novel conservation strategy - a mobile health clinic - in the predominantly agricultural communities bordering Kibale National Park, Uganda. The implementation of the mobile clinic programme coincided with a more positive attitude towards the park and a decrease in the number of people who 'disliked' the park. Despite this, the incidence of encroachment increased. There are a number of possible explanations for this contradiction, including respondents giving answers they believe will maintain the service they appreciate, and that while the local community may appreciate the mobile clinic, this appreciation is not sufficient to make people alter their behaviour because of tradition or need (e.g., the need among the very poor to feed their family or send a child to school is very high). Overall, people typically expressed that they did not have a problem with living adjacent to the park, except for the harm done by crop-raiding animals. However, local people expressed the view that they receive few benefits from the park - a perception that might be improved with more extensive use of the mobile clinic.</p

Exploring multiple dimensions of conservation success: Long-term wildlife trends, anti-poaching efforts, and revenue sharing in Kibale National Park, Uganda

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