The BFP’s live-trap project is one, partial solution to the problem of chimpanzees
being caught in leg-hold traps and snares near farmers’ fields. Other ideas have not pro-
gressed beyond the drawing board stage. One such is the idea of buffer zones between
sugar cane fields and the forest. Such zones are not without their problems, especially in
the context of immigration, and raise complex issues of land use and management (see,
for example, Peterson 2001; Curran and Tshombe 2001; Richard and Dewar 2001).
However, each situation demands its own solution and lessons from one area may not be
wholly relevant to another.
Buffer zones
In September 2000, members of the BFP, together with relevant local people, worked on
two ideas that would have benefits for chimpanzees. The first was a buffer zone between
sugar fields and the forest where at present the cane comes right up to the forest edge.
We prepared a document on the subject, for consultation with the Kinyara Sugar Works
(KSW) management, the relevant local and central authorities and funding agencies.
This document explains that, with the expansion of production by KSW, sugar has
been grown by private landowners (outgrowers) as well as by the main KSW itself.
Many of the fields of the outgrowers are located to the northern side of the
Masindi–Butiaba road, and they extend in many cases as far as the southern borders of
the main Budongo Forest block.
A survey of the locations of 40 outgrowers’ plots close to the boundary of Budongo
Forest Reserve was conducted in 2003 by a BFP field assistant, Gideon Monday, and
a representative of KSW. The results are shown in Table 12.6. As can be seen, of these
40 sugar cane fields, 9 were either partly inside the boundary or on the boundary of the
Reserve. As a result, chimpanzees (as well as other species such as baboons) are able to
move from the forest where they normally live into the sugar cane fields in order to raid
the crops. While this is something KSW is familiar with in the case of baboons, and for
Buffer zones 235Fig. 12.4: Hunting sign (encounter rate per kilometre walked) in Budongo Forest Reserve. The
larger the circle, the larger the encounter rate. Signs included snares, pitfall traps, hunters
encountered, dogs and nets (courtesy of A. Plumptre, WCS, from Plumptre et al. 2003).