Scale and Geopolitics at Ngogo

This chapter investigates Ngogo’s extraordinary size and density and the differing relationships with its neighbors, all in connection to prime foods grown within old farm clearings, and to more recent and extensive forest loss nearby. It discusses the anthropogenic habitat loss within the Kibale National Park (KNP) that did not end in 1978 and was not reversed until 1992, not long before observations resumed in 1995. It also argues that human habitat modification led to a sharp increase in Ngogo numbers and density to exceptional levels, which enabled and led up to external killings. The chapter makes a geopolitical tour around Ngogo’s edges, demonstrating territorial pressure from southern and western neighbors which are more exposed to recent habitat loss. Ngogo has by far the largest chimpanzee group ever studied, which researchers clearly recognize is what enabled them to kill neighbors and expand.