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Tanzania Journal
By Gwynn Crichton
Virginia Director of Conservation Planning and Stewardship
Gwynn Crichton joined a Conservancy team this past June in Kigoma, Tanzania, to facilitate a workshop for the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI). After working with JGI toward a conservation plan for Gombe Stream National Park and the wild chimpanzees first studied by Dr. Goodall, Crichton traveled to the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti. The excerpts below are from her field journal.
June 10, 2006: Kigoma, Tanzania
I got my first glimpse of Africa at dawn when we landed in Nairobi to see the savanna bathed in soft purple light. We found out today that coincidentally Jane Goodall is coming to Kigoma and Gombe this week!
June 14, 2006: Gombe Stream National Park
We went trekking for chimps this morning and were lucky enough to come across the former alpha male Freud, who was napping in the middle of the path, and his young nephew Fudge. Freud got up and let out a remarkably loud and quite frightening pant-hoo. He was calling out to invite other members of his community to join him. There was no response, so he settled down for another nap.
I was also thrilled to gaze out over Gombe’s mountains and Lake Tanganyika from the famed “Jane’s Peak,” where she kept watch six months before spotting her first wild chimps. She used to spend the night there with nothing but a blanket and a kettle for her coffee. We hiked to the big waterfall and saw troops of baboons, red-tailed monkeys, incredible strangler figs, dung beetles, wildflowers, fruits and ferns galore. This was a day I will never forget.
June 18, 2006: Flight to Dar es Salaam
The first night I met Dr. Jane was a dinner hosted by the JGI staff in Kigoma. At age 73, she travels more than 300 days a year giving lectures and attending meetings, conferences and events. She is an utterly dedicated advocate for conservation, justice, poverty alleviation and animal welfare. I think of Jane Goodall as the Gandhi of conservation, and to have spent time with her in Gombe was beyond special.
Late Friday we wrapped up our workshop on conservation strategies to protect the chimpanzees at Gombe. Gombe is Tanzania’s smallest national park, about the size of Virginia’s Warm Springs Mountain. A population viability analysis shows that the chimps need twice as much habitat. Park expansion is the most obvious solution, but the single most sensitive and volatile issue in the local village. For now, the main strategy is working with local villages on plans for sustainable economic growth.
Swimming in Lake Tanganyika at the end of each day became habit-forming. The lake’s fauna is 90 percent endemic — almost entirely unique — and its diversity astounding. Of 308 fish species on record, almost 200 are cichlids, brilliantly colored, iridescent little fish. This is the jewel of Africa in my opinion, and I wonder how much longer its pristine nature will persist.
Next: View Gwynn's second postcard
Africa Resources
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Learn more about the Conservancy's work in Africa.
- Read about our Africa program in the Spring 2007 issue of Nature Conservancy magazine.
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Go along with our lead scientist, Sanjayan, as he details his journeys to Kenya in the debut of Wild Life, his new online column.
