Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
climbing trees, swimming in ponds. She wanted to test her limits and see what she could create and
give back to the world.
She knew that she had to learn as much as possible, to speak Lingala fluently and understand
the culture. The Bongandu were proud, and they spoke of the forests with a sense of authority. The
forest was the source of their livelihood; their entire cosmology derived from it, spirits and mystery
and sustenance, the forces of nature against which they balanced their lives. Conservation would
require a delicate approach here—an understanding of the people, and the ability to listen.
On Sally's last day in Wamba, she went into the forest with the head tracker, Nkoy Batalumbo.
She'd arranged with the village women to prepare a meal that she could share with him, and once
there, they ate together. Seeing this, the bonobos came the closest that they had during the entire
trip.
When Sally arrived back in the United States, she was already thinking about her return to Zaire.
She continued with the Bonobo Protection Fund, but its meetings were contentious. She was learn-
ing that the human side of the bonobo world was rife with conflict. When it comes to chimpanzees,
Jane Goodall will be forever in the minds of people, as is true of Dian Fossey with gorillas, or Birutė
Galdikas with orangutans. But who would be the Jane Goodall of bonobos? Whose name would
be attached to them, as their emissary in the human world? When resources are newly discovered,
there is often a race to exploit them, and the same holds true in the field of science. With bonobos,
there was room to do new studies and make a name.
“It was never my goal to be the next Jane Goodall,” Sally told me. “I've often talked about the
Jane Goodall syndrome as being at the root of much of the conflict between the female scientists.
People thought that was what I was trying to be, but I wanted to unify people, to make a cooperat-
ive, unified force for bonobos.”
In 1996, she planned her second trip to Zaire, selling most of her furniture for additional fund-
ing. She hadn't fleshed out her idea. Her vision of her work there was open-ended. She would meet
people and learn how the country worked. But as she was preparing to leave, the First Congo War
broke out. She waited, hoping it would be brief, that she could go soon, but nearly five years passed
before she was able to depart. By then, millions of people had died, and thousands of bonobos had
been slaughtered for bushmeat.
