The Great Primate Handshake – Volunteer in Africa, working to conserve monkeys and apes through film and educational content production

We work with a satisfied smugness as today was a milestone in our quest to make the morning porridge tasty. An addition of Ugandan Jam (complete with 3 types of sugar and a sprinkling of E numbers) was due to sweeten it up considerably. But it was no match for the fresh juices, watermelon, pineapple, cereals, teas, coffees, cheeeeeesy omlettes… up at the Hotel that we called home, ready for our journey to local conservation programmes.

We had lunch early at about 11:15, and then headed off to an education centre nearby and met with the Kanywabarogo Riviera Forest and Land Users Association. Both JGI (Jane Goodall Institute) and CSWCT (Chimpanzee Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Trust) have some brilliant projects running there at the moment – working to help re-generate the overexploited forest and to assist the local community. JGI are also due to complete the construction of a cafe, designed to attract tourists to the local area and provide an income for local residents. The cafe is built with a view of the forest, and there are plans to introduce guided walks – again, producing jobs for local residents keen to conserve their forest and also profit from it’s preservation.

After a brief introduction by CSWCT and JGI staff, we were taken down to a tree nursery where seedlings are nurtured for both forest regrowth and to hand out to locals. The former trees are not only to counteract deforestation, but also form part of a huge project concerning much of western Uganda in creating habitat corridors between forests for the Chimpanzees to travel down. The corridors are important to stop inter-breeding between small groups of isolated chimpanzees and also give them the opportunity to live lives with plentiful food that they can access away from humans. The trees for the latter were mostly fruit – jackfruit and mango being the most popular; as well as trees for timber (building and firewood). It was really clever how they had cheated the trees out of about a year’s worth of growth before they fruit by grafting the root stalk of the seed they grew, with the cutting of a fully grown tree. With a bit of a bandage, love and attention, the two different trees would quickly join to become one!

After looking at all the seedlings we were taken up the road to meet a local farmer who benefits from this tree project. The project is vital for farmers since fruit is a good source of income, and takes up far less room than the worthless maize, which is worth about 1000 shillings per Kilo – that’s £0.36. So you can imagine how much maize a farmer would need to grow in order to get anything worthwhile out of it, and how much forest must be surrendered for crop planting. Mangos on the other hand sell for about 3000 shillings per kilo (£1.00), a much more satisfactory price and all for a couple of mangos from a single tree. CSWCT also give out animals to the community, and pig farming has really taken off in the Hoima district. They’re a great investment and in return, every time the pig gives birth a couple of piglets’ll go back to the CSWCT to be given out to even more farmers.

The farmer we visited and his family were so so poor. I’d hate to think that if these people are benefiting from these projects, that other people in Uganda can in the future do so too. We then walked for a further half an hour up the road to see the café they were building in the village of Bulindi to help the community there. It’s situated in a brilliant location in between the national parks of Kibale and Murchison Falls and backs on to a forest full of primates including Chimpanzees. In 6-months time, if any of you guys reading my post happen to be passing that way, please stop off – it’ll really help and it may be the last place to have a cool drink for many miles. There, that’s my bit of advertising for the day, and your bit of conservation work if you ever go to Uganda. And there you have it, the main part of the day, and I guess the only part that I should really be writing about, but I need to put a big shout out (being a food lover) to Abbie and Emily, who in the evening made the BEST mash ever! And enough to fill every single one of us to the brim. Ahh, somedays it’s great to be a Handshaker.