Today we met with the hunters. They were not very reassured. “What do Maman Claudine and Pierrot want from us?” They knew that we had asked for hunting to stop in “Ekolo ya Bonobo”. Were they afraid of our critisism?
We had to reassure them. I already knew that among them I would choose the trackers that would work very close to our bonobos, but at that point we just wanted some precise information on the presence of the Mukumbusu (local name for bonobos) near their villages, beyond the limit of “Ekolo”.
I explained the concept of eco-tourism and the benefit of being so close to Basankusu as well as the chance they would have to work with us on the habituation of a group of wild bonobos in order to bring in further income to the villagers. There was a lot of talk in their own dialect and so Pierrot concluded by asking them to think about it all.
