Two days ago my field of potatoes was raided. I lost about twenty sacks of potatoes, which would have helped to feed my family and some of it I would have sold to help pay school fees. I found out that a troop of baboons had raided my garden in the afternoon, just when the boy I had employed as a guard had gone for lunch.

Maybe you have not heard of crop raiding before? Many people around Bwindi and other protected areas face this problem and it has remained a challenge for the Uganda Wildlife Authority who manage the National Park. The main animals that raid crops are baboons, bushpigs, elephants, monkeys and even gorillas in some places. This loss of food and income has often caused bad feelings from communities towards the Park Managers. No easy solution has been found so far (see the blogpost on the Nkuringo buffer zone).

These days local people are more positive about living next to a national park than a decade ago. Some are even involved in conservation (like myself), but it is easy to become discouraged again when our crops are destroyed by wild animals from the protected area. No compensation is offered. Because of crop raiding, fields along the boundary of Bwindi need to be guarded during day time when there is a crop. Children may not go to school for several days/weeks in order to protect the family’s fields near to harvesting time. However, during night hours no-one is guarding and remember, some animals move and feed during the night and of course they do not always stay within the park boundaries.

Planting crops that do not attract animals (tea, coffee, fast growing trees, pyrethrum etc), has been successful around some other protected areas. But people experience land shortage and poor yields, so it is hard to dedicate a field to non-food crops if you have to feed a large family. Fences are too expensive and in any case they do not keep out the baboons which simply climb over.