Of chimps and humans

GOMBE NATIONAL PARK, Tanzania -- Starting nearly a half-century ago, Jane Goodall helped the world see chimpanzees differently -- as animals quite a bit like us.

Now an institute named after her is tackling a more difficult job: saving them.

Here on the shores of the deep-water Lake Tanganyika , where Goodall, 72, still returns twice a year, the problems faced by chimpanzees all over Africa are seen in microcosm: Villages surrounding this tiny park are growing rapidly, refugees periodically arrive in great numbers, people clear forests to grow crops, and some hunt the chimps for food.

At the turn of the 20th century, an estimated 1 million to 2 million chimpanzees roamed in Africa's forests. Their numbers today have fallen to fewer than 150,000.

In order to protect the chimps in the forests of central and western Africa, including an estimated 100 living in tiny Gombe Park, the Jane Goodall Institute hopes its 46 years of research will continue to educate people and raise money. But the institute is also focusing on the chimps' neighbors: Organizers believe that if they can improve the lives of villagers, the villagers will leave the chimps and the forests alone.

"To protect the great apes, you have to deal with their habitat," said Keith Brown , executive vice president of the institute's Africa program. "Bush meat is a big problem, but a bigger issue is that people want more land for agriculture, and they are using slash-and-burn tactics to do that."

Institute officials hope that the Tanzanian coffee growers will soon sign a deal to supply beans to Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Vermont, providing income to hundreds of coffee growers who live near the park. Included in the agreement would be an expansion of the forest areas preserved for the chimps.

In July 1960, Goodall, then 26, arrived in this remote part of western Tanzania accompanied by her mother, Vanne . (British authorities had resisted the idea of a young woman living alone among wild animals in Africa but relented when her mother decided to make the trip.) After three frustrating months of observations, during which she wondered whether she had made the right decision, the young researcher noticed a chimp using a blade of grass to extricate termites from a mound in order to eat them.

She realized that the discovery would shake the world: Humans were not the only toolmaker on earth. Years later, DNA researchers would lend scientific proof to the genetically close relationship between humans and chimps, finding that chimps are the closest animal relative to humans.

Over the years, Goodall and her researchers would make many more discoveries by observing the chimps at close range, often just several feet away. Researchers learned that chimpanzees hunt in packs for meat; that they can show aggression, affection, and altruism; and that, like humans, they have distinct personalities. The scientists' work at Gombe represents the longest field study of any animal species in their natural environment.

But Goodall and others realized that wasn't enough.

Their discoveries were not slowing the steady destruction of forests in which the chimps lived. The loss of habitat has resulted in a long-term decline of the chimp population; when Goodall started her work, the population was estimated at around 150.

Outside the park, other Goodall institute workers, almost all Tanzanians, are working in communities in hopes of lessening the pressure on Gombe. They call the project Tacare, after Lake Tanganyika Catchment Reforestation and Education Project . The project is more than a decade old, but until recently it was making little difference in people's lives -- largely because it has taken time to lessen suspicions.

"When we first asked villagers to plant trees, people's response was that we just wanted to take land away from them," said Dr. Mike Wilson , director of the institute's field research in Gombe.

But Wilson and villagers said that trust has gradually grown over the years as economic, education, and health projects have helped many in the communities near the park.

The institute's idea is to help people earn a living without harming the environment and to slow the region's skyrocketing population growth.

In the village of Kalinzi , population 10,815, the institute pays male and female workers to encourage couples to use contraceptives and have fewer children. Not everyone is receptive -- not because they are against saving the chimpanzees but because the cultural expectation is for large families. In western Tanzania, women have an average of seven children, among the highest rates in the world.

"Quite a lot of women have doubts," said Moshi Kagozi , 40, one of the health workers and the father of three children. "They think that people will blame them for not having more children. We tell them they should have a couple of years at least in between babies. It is healthier for everyone."

Renia Ndalemye , 30, agreed as she sat recently on a wobbly wooden bench in her dirt backyard with seven of her eight children huddled around her. "I would have liked to have fewer children, not just because of the animals, but because it is hard to feed and take care of so many children," she said. "I'm exhausted."

In nearby Matyazo , Yahya Mahwisa , the chairman of a local coffee growers' cooperative, said the institute was helping them try to sell their beans internationally to specialty markets, possibly through Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Vermont.

The growers currently receive about 70 cents per kilogram of coffee beans; if they sell the beans internationally, they hope to receive more than double the price, he said.

Green Mountain coffee tasters in Waterbury, Vt., tasted the Tanzanian coffee last week, Lindsey Bolger , the company's director of coffee sourcing and relationships, said in a telephone interview. Bolger visited the coffee growers earlier this year.

"We know there is a great quality of coffee in that area," Bolger said, adding that Green Mountain plans to negotiate purchase of some of the beans. In Tanzania, Mahwisa said much rides on the negotiations with the Vermont buyers: "If we miss this chance, we will feel very let down," he said. If the deal goes through and more people want to grow coffee, communities have agreed to set aside land near the chimp areas for conservation.

The Goodall Institute intends to help its neighbors by buying quality control equipment for the coffee beans they sell overseas. Other institute projects involve increasing literacy, planting new fields of palm oil trees, and giving small loans to businesses.

The institute is also working farther afield, in South Africa, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, and, most recently, Sierra Leone and Guinea, where they are teaching people about the importance of protecting the chimps.

"Our biggest challenge is the extent of the poverty around Gombe" and parks and chimp sanctuaries in other countries, said Brown, head of the institute's Africa programs. "Villagers are concerned that conservation outweighs their well-being. We have to show that both are our top priority."

John Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com.