The Jane Goodall Institute in Spain (IJGE) has been running wild chimpanzee conservation and research programmes in Senegal and Guinea since 2009, as well as sustainable-development and environmental-education programmes with the local community. The IJGE's main aim is conservation of the West African chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes verus, a critically endangered subspecies according to the UICN, with an estimated population of 500 individuals in Senegal. Its main threats in this area are deforestation and habitat fragmentation caused by human activity. At the same time, the IJGE is working on improving the means of subsistence of the local community, helping people to manage natural resources in a sustainable way, promoting food safety and offering training and environmental education.
The IJGE carries out its work mainly in the area of the Réserve Naturelle Communautaire de Dindéfélo (RNCD), which includes 12 villages, located in the south-east of Senegal, in the Kedougou region. The RNCD was created in 2010 and receives technical assistance from the IJGE's team, to help it to achieve its conservation goals in this unique habitat for this seriously endangered subspecies of chimpanzee.
One of the IJGE's main goals is the ecological and ethological monitoring of the RNCD's chimpanzee groups, as well as exploration of adjacent areas for introducing habitat-conservation programmes. The last few years have seen great diversity in the research projects carried out thanks to support from several institutions with the Barcelona Zoo Foundation (through PRIC grants and a Snowflake scholarship), EAZA, Biodiversidad Foundation and USAID and in collaboration with European universities (University of Girona, Oxford Brookes University and the University of Oslo).
Collaboration between the IJGE and the Barcelona Zoo Foundation has the following priority goals: (1) Obtaining data on the ecology and ethology of the RNCD's various chimpanzee subgroups to continue with the longitudinal study started in 2009, (2) Study on the impact of habituation on chimpanzee behaviour and analysis of possible conflicts with the RNCD's human communities, and (3) Exploration to locate areas with a presence of chimpanzees in northern Guinea for introducing a future protected cross-border area (Reserva del Fouta Jallon).