How chimpanzees are changing livelihoods of gold miners in rural Senegal

A West African chimpanzee climbs down a baobab tree on the Fongoli home range in the Kedougou region, on December 9, 2025. [AFP]

Michel Tama Sadiakhou's future dramatically changed course some 15 years ago thanks to a clan of spear-wielding apes: instead of the dangerous work in informal gold mines that is the fate of many in Senegal’s far southeast, he now researches rare chimpanzees.

He is among five people from local villages, all but one without a high school diploma, working on a project focused on the area's highly unusual savannah-dwelling chimpanzees.