Visions of Apes, Reflections on Change: Telling Tales of Great Apes in Equatorial Africa

Abstract:This article explores stories that some central Africans in the middle Sangha River basin and in northern Gabon have told about gorillas and chimpanzees. Such tales have provided opportunities for Africans to debate the consequences of their engagements with outside people, resources, and processes. But their meanings have proliferated in different social, cultural, and historical contexts. Central Africans have used such stories to make claims about access to and control over human productive and reproductive labor, forest resources and spaces, and other forms of wealth; racial and ethnic relations; and human existence and death. These stories provide critical insights into the reasons people hunt or protect great apes, and they illuminate the complex social and political tensions generated by conservation interventions. Great ape tales thus offer conservationists insights into the challenges and promise of managing an important game population, as well as the potential social consequences of their interventions.