Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
by nine, they don't bear offspring until they are between thirteen and fifteen, just before they reach
their full adult size. Pregnancies produce only one child, and mothers nurse for five years. Their in-
fants, like those of humans, require learned behavior to survive and remain dependent through their
adolescent years. Parents must invest a great deal of time and energy into raising and educating
them, and this in itself limits the number of offspring they can produce. Like humans, bonobos de-
velop large brains, and this also means a slow growth rate, since brain tissue consumes more energy
than almost any other body part. In the typical life span of a bonobo—fifty to fifty-five years—a
mother can have only five or six children, one every 4.6 years.
André understood this. Though the forests of western Sankuru were degraded and overpopu-
lated, he intended to prevent further encroachment as well as logging concessions. He knew the
classic scenario: loggers cutting roads that quickly become rivers of meat; trained hunters access-
ing new areas that they “empty” systematically; and European-financed logging trucks carrying the
smoked meat to larger markets or cities. Such roads bring migrant workers trained as loggers, as
well as their families, into the unfamiliar forests, where the only source of protein is bushmeat. With
western Sankuru, André planned to create a buffer, teaching people the value of the forest and even-
tually funding its protection through carbon credits, while in the eastern region, he would focus on
active wildlife conservation, hiring eco-guards and—once the area was free of hunters—habituating
bonobos.
He traveled throughout Sankuru, teaching people, and their confidence in him grew with each
survey and training program, and with CREF's increased presence. ACOPRIK led an expedition
to meet with community leaders, explaining the purpose of the reserve, the ways it could create a
sustainable economy in the future. The villagers said they were ready to do this, and they signed an
accord that André took to the ICCN.
On November 6, 2007, the Sankuru Nature Reserve was officially signed into existence, one of
the largest in Africa at three million hectares. BCI put out a press release that newspapers around
the world picked up. The
New York Times
and
Time
magazine published articles on Sankuru. Sud-
denly, there was an 11,802-square-mile nature reserve and a great deal of good press, but no funds
to enforce laws against hunting and logging. Former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin called
BCI's offices in DC, speaking to Sally and Michael, and asking how the reserve had been created
with so little funding.
Almost immediately, before BCI and ACOPRIK could start their work in earnest, the contro-
versy around Sankuru began, nearly bringing work in the reserve to a standstill and damaging re-
lationships between ACOPRIK and the local people. John and Terese Hart, an American husband-
and-wife team of scientists who had been at the GRASP conference where Sally and André told
people about the presence of bonobos in Sankuru, had since received funding and initiated surveys
in the Sankuru region, unbeknownst to BCI. Their findings confirmed those by ACOPRIK, CREF,
and BCI, and in the scientific world, announcing the presence of bonobos, okapis, and an unknown
monkey species in a new region represented a significant discovery.
Sally recalled, “When we found out they were conducting surveys in that area and the news
about Sankuru came out, I wrote to them in the interest of collaboration. But when the announce-
ment came out, they launched a major attack.”
It began on Thanksgiving 2007 with a series of emails that Terese Hart addressed to Sally but
that she copied to a dozen people directly or indirectly involved with bonobos, as well as donors.
She wrote that the villagers in parts of Sankuru not only were unaware of the reserve, but that the
