began its outgrowers scheme under which farmers are paid by KSW for the sugar they
grow on their own fields. As suspected by Kiwede, the growing of sugar cane right by
the forest has affected farmers’ attitudes to chimpanzees in a negative way.
Kiwede asked farmers what their attitude would be if they found a chimpanzee in a
trap: would they run away, rescue it, report to the local council, report to BFP or kill it?
In reply, 55% of farmers said they would leave it in the trap and move away, the reason
given was that chimpanzees could be very dangerous especially when trapped; 23%
replied that they would report this to the BFP or to the local council so that action could
be taken straight away; 15% replied that they would rescue it ‘because chimpanzees are
human. How can one leave his relative in the trap and move away?’.
However, 6% replied that they would just kill it and gave the following reasons:
● Bones of chimps when crushed and made into powder are good to be applied on
fractures. Application: lacerate around the fractured area and apply the powder.
● Lacerate behind the palm and apply the powder. It’s known to be good for boxers.
● The same powder can be used for relief of pain in vessels. Lacerate around where
you are feeling the pain and apply the powder.
● The same powder is believed to chase away ghosts, if the powder is smoked near the
patient.
At Nyakafunjo (one of the villages in Kiwede’s study) a chimpanzee was killed a few
years ago and when we made enquiries we were told it had been killed because its bones
would be used for medicinal purposes. This was the first such case we had come across
in our area. We were told that this was done by a visitor from Arua, to the north. The
chimpanzee, probably a member of the Nyakafunjo community living to the south of
our Sonso community, was never found.
Kiwede’s conclusion: in general the attitude locally to chimpanzees is a positive one
even among farmers. However, the spread of sugar cane outgrowing is changing atti-
tudes from positive to negative. The negative attitude is one we encounter in extreme
fashion when we consider, in the next chapter, the case of Kasokwa Forest, a southern
offshoot of Budongo Forest, where hostility between humans and chimpanzees has
reached severe, and lethal, proportions.
In the final study reported here, that of Mnason Tweheyo and his collaborators
(Tweheyo et al.in press), 144 farmers around Budongo Forest were asked to rate crop-
raiding animals according to how seriously they damaged crops. The results are shown
in Table 10.4. This table is quite informative as it shows quantitatively the perceived dif-
ference of threat posed by chimpanzees as against baboons and bush pigs: the former are
not considered to be either very destructive or even destructive, but enter the picture as
being moderately destructive; by contrast both baboons and bush pigs occupy the two
most destructive categories.
210 The human foreground