Territorial and land-use rights perspectives on human-chimpanzee-elephant coexistence in West Africa (Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, nineteenth to twenty-first centuries)

Abstract

The first part of this article compares the distribution of chimpanzee and elephant populations in reaction to human territorial dynamics of West African trade in parts of nineteenth century Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal. It answers for this specific region the question of whether present-day situations of close chimpanzee-human spatial proximity are stable or only temporary phenomena in long-term processes of environmental change, and shows that conservation policies centred on either of these two “flagship” species carry radically different ecological, political and territorial implications. The second part shifts to local-level perspectives on human-chimpanzee relationships, emphasizing the land rights contentions and misunderstandings created by the implementation of protected areas at Bossou and in the Boké region of Guinea. These case studies help to look at acts of resistance and local interpretations of primate conservation policies as opportunities to reconsider what is being protected, for what purpose, as whose heritage, and to move towards new and more legitimate opportunities for the implementation of conservation policies.