#20 Monkey magic in Diani, Kenya with Pam Cunneyworth

Sep 3, 24

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Episode 20 Monkey magic in Diani, Kenya with Pam Cunneyworth

[00:00:00] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Hello, welcome back to the East Africa Travel Podcast, hosted by me, Charlotte Beauvoisin, author of Diary of a Muzungu.

Episode 20. Wow, we’ve come a long way together!

In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about all kinds of monkeys with another kindred spirit, Pam Cunneyworth. I say Pam’s a kindred spirit because, like me, she started life dreaming of Africa and has worked and travelled all around East Africa and now lives in Nairobi.

[00:00:54] Charlotte Beauvoisin: This episode is going to be a little longer than the previous ones because I have an announcement to make. But before that, I’d like to introduce you to Pam, a conservationist: she’s currently doing a PhD at Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent in the UK.

[00:01:12] Charlotte Beauvoisin: If you’re interested in conservation, you may know the work and the books by Gerald Durrell.

[00:01:18] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Gerald Durrell is one of my very first conservation heroes. You might remember the book, My Family and Other Animals. When I was a teenager, I used to travel vicariously through all his books. Amazing to think now that I live in East Africa, writing about and promoting conservation, thanks in many ways to him and people like him.

[00:01:42] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Pam is a friend of ours at Sunbird Hill but I learnt so much from my conversation with her. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

[00:01:57] Charlotte Beauvoisin: I’m watching two very big baboons and they’re quite away from me, about 100 meters. Oh, three of them! I wonder if they’re arguing over food.

They’ve just come racing out of a field where there are some crops. I’m watching four baboons.

Morning. How are you? Fine, thanks.

You just wouldn’t want to farm right there. I mean, it’s literally land next to the trench, next to the forest.

I’ll go and have a look in a second. But there’s just always a big group of baboons around here. And there’s a little guarding hut, right on the edge of the forest, next to the trench, and there’s often somebody sleeping in there.

What a life! Oh, very difficult. The baboons disappeared, I can see a couple. Ironically, one of them is sitting on the roof of the guarding hut! But there won’t be anybody in the guarding hut. The guarding hut is for nighttime. Three baboons walking across what we call the community football pitch.

[00:04:06] Charlotte Beauvoisin: It’s quite a good use of land because it’s flat and it’s just not suitable for farming really so, turning it into a football pitch is a pretty cool idea.

Ooh, baboons having sex on the middle of the football pitch. (I’m sure they’re not the first primates to have sex just there!) Ooh, that was a quick over and done with in about five seconds. Maybe that’s what all the noise is about.

[00:04:42] Charlotte Beauvoisin: In this episode of the podcast, I am joined by Pam Cunneyworth, who is Director of Colobus Conservation, in Diani, on the Kenyan coast. Pam oversees the organization’s primate research and conservation activities. She received her Master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Calgary in Canada with a specialization in primatology.

[00:05:07] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Shortly after graduating, Pam moved to East Africa and worked with chimps in Burundi, researched baboons and surveyed forests in the Usambura mountains of Tanzania and joined Colobus Conservation in 2003 as conservation manager. Since 2009, she was appointed to the Board of Directors. She lives in Nairobi with her husband Alex and their daughter Rachel. And more importantly than anything, she’s a lifelong friend of Sunbird Hill, where we are today .

[00:05:39] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Pam, welcome to the East Africa Travel Podcast!

Today we’re in the bird hide and it’s a very special place. I’ve sat here, I’ve seen chimps in the tree opposite, I’ve seen black and white colobus monkeys, and of course black and white colobus – I can’t see them without thinking about you and all your work! And so please tell us a little bit about, what’s so special about black and white colobus and the work that you’re doing in Diani.

[00:06:03] Pam Cunneyworth: Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. Colobus Conservation: we’re on the southeast corner of Kenya and what we have there is a species that isn’t in the rest of Kenya or even in Uganda.

What we have is Colobus angolensis. The rest of the black and white colobus that people are familiar with are the Guereza colobus. So they’re a separate species. What we have in Kwale County, where Diani is, this subspecies, there’s only about 35,000 left globally because they’re a forest dependent species.

[00:06:38] Pam Cunneyworth: If we save the colobus, we’ll save the forest ecosystem, which ultimately is great for all the forest dependent species and also the communities surrounding those forests.

[00:06:48] Charlotte Beauvoisin: I hadn’t realized that the colobus monkeys that you have in Kenya are different to the ones that we have here. So what is it that we have here in Kibale Forest?

[00:06:55] Pam Cunneyworth: Now, you have the guereza, which we also have in Kenya. But not in that southeast corner. So that’s colobus angolensis.

[00:07:04] Charlotte Beauvoisin: For people who don’t know what a colobus monkey is, can you describe what they look like to start with.

[00:07:10] Pam Cunneyworth: There’s two main African types of monkeys: one is a Cercopithecine, and one is a Colobine, and they’re actually quite different types of monkeys. People are familiar with the blue monkey, with the baboon, with the vervet monkeys, and those are Cercopithecines. Their behavior and physiology are similar to people. But the colobines are very, very different.

[00:07:33] Pam Cunneyworth: The colobines are leaf eaters and so their whole morphology and physiology is based on breaking down that cellulose within the leaf, which changes them fundamentally. They have a three part stomach, and there are four gut fermenters to break down that cellulose.

[00:07:55] Pam Cunneyworth: Where the other monkeys have cheek pouches to store food, Colobines do not. They don’t have a thumb, but they have very, very long fingers. And that helps them grab the bunches of leaves and pull them towards them because they don’t have to manipulate food that the other types of monkeys have to do to process leaves and flowers and fruit and roots.

[00:08:14] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Describe what they look like because they’re very striking animals, aren’t they?

[00:08:18] Pam Cunneyworth: So that’s the difference between the Angelensis that we protect in the southeast corner of Kenya. Colobus guereza are the striking black and white colobine and people recognize them because they have these white long and Striking hairs down the back, on opposite sides of the back, and the white tail that’s very big, white, and fluffy.

Colobus angulensis has a very different black and white pattern. And instead of white going down their back, they have white on the shoulder. People call those epilates. And then their tail is not bushy like the guereza. The white starts about halfway down, and it’s generally short hairs.

[00:09:01] Pam Cunneyworth: Whether it’s the guereza or the Angelensis, when they’re jumping around in the trees, the hair is flowing, and it creates a beautiful display. And if you’re in a hide like what we are sitting in now, and we see the Colobus quite far away, the black is more camouflaged against the trees, and then the white, when the sunlight hits it, pops out and so you can see them at a quite far distance.

[00:09:28] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Do you know why they have black and white fur? Because the white surely means predators can see them?

[00:09:37] Pam Cunneyworth: Any animal has this balance to do in adaptation so where you can display to other adult males or to put on a display for an adult female versus being camouflaged for a predator. And that’s the balance most animals have to weigh out in that evolutionary process.

[00:09:58] Charlotte Beauvoisin: How many monkeys do you have down in Diani that you’re studying or in the whole forest? Tell us a bit about those.

[00:10:05] Pam Cunneyworth: We count them every October, and we have about 280 of them within seven square kilometers so everyone has a colobus on their veranda. They are really everywhere so Diani is a fantastic place to come and have that really close observations of them.

[00:10:23] Pam Cunneyworth: In Kwale County, we have about 3,500. What we know is we have a national reserve that has about 2,000; Diani’s 280, and between those two sub populations, they maintain the meta population, so the overall population of the whole county because the national reserve, of course, is nationally protected, we’re happy with that, but Diani is actually an urban area, it’s a town.

[00:10:51] Pam Cunneyworth: Those colobus in that town are critically important for conserving the metapopulation across the county so we can’t lose that urban population. They’re critically important for the metapopulation in Kwale. The thing is, it’s 280 individuals, but it’s only 7 square kilometers. This is a tiny area, so the density is very high, and much higher than what you would get in, if we came to Sunbird Hill, and we were looking at the Colobus guereza here, you would have probably a group in each valley here.

[00:11:24] Pam Cunneyworth: But in Diani, they’re really tightly packed together.

[00:11:28] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Can you describe Diani to us as a location? So we know it’s on the coast. Clearly there are trees. Do you call it a forest that you have down there?

[00:11:35] Pam Cunneyworth: It used to be primary forest. In 1971, a bulldozer came in and cut straight through that primary forest. That was Diani Beach Road that bisected the town north to south, and that forces animals to have to cross that road to access resources on the opposite side of the road. So, in fact, the long term issues with population sustainability for all the primates in Diani, that road is what really started it. Big problem.

[00:12:04] Charlotte Beauvoisin: So you do have some forest there. The forest cover itself is seven square kilometers, isn’t it?

[00:12:09] Pam Cunneyworth: Well that’s the town, yes. So the forest that we have in Kwale is Zanzibar–Inhambane coastal forest mosaic in Diani. There’s original forest trees and forest patches but this forest is globally unique, it’s called a Global Biodiversity Hotspot, which means that those trees, those insects, those animals, there’s a high level of endemism within those forests, which is those species that only occur in those forests, nowhere else in the world.

What we have is a Global Biodiversity Hotspot, and part of that definition is that it is also highly threatened.

[00:12:51] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Right. And threatened from What?

[00:12:55] Pam Cunneyworth: A conversion of forest to agriculture, forest to towns, um But I assume it’s protected, on paper at least. We have what’s called kaya forests, these are the sacred forests, the traditional sacred forests of the local people, of the Digo people.

National Museums of Kenya has made into most of these forests and put in the designation as National Monument. And some of these have also been gazetted as forest reserves. Some of them have an additional gazettement of UNESCO. We are actually trying to get more and more gazettements on top of these forests so that we can protect them for the long term, for the biodiversity, but also for the communities living adjacent to the forests. That’s their tradition. That’s their culture. You can’t lose by protecting forests, that’s for sure.

[00:13:47] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Before we get into the great work that you’re doing with Colobus Conservation, I just wanted to rewind a little bit and talk about your journey to East Africa.

We were swapping notes the other day and was reminded of the fact that like me and so many of my friends here, you came here as a volunteer. How did you come to East Africa? I mean, how did East Africa come onto your radar when you left university in Canada?

[00:14:11] Pam Cunneyworth: Ah, it started decades before then.

When I was seven years old, in Canada, my teacher was Dorian Baxter and he grew up in Mombasa. He put a map of Kenya on our wall. He taught us Kenya’s national anthem in Swahili. And in gym class, he gave us all tribal names as our team names. He just put the love of Africa into me, and I knew at the age of seven that I was going to come and live here.

[00:14:42] Charlotte Beauvoisin: That’s incredible.

[00:14:43] Pam Cunneyworth: But I didn’t know, of course, what was I going to do. And then in my first year of university at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, I went to just a public talk by one of the visiting professors, Birutė Galdikas. And she lives in Borneo, in Kalimantan, and she studies orangutans. And she was one of the first “trimates” that was sent out by Louis Leakey.

[00:15:05] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Trimates? Oh, yes.

[00:15:07] Pam Cunneyworth: There was Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birutė Galdikas. So, when Birutė was giving her slideshow, I sat there and I thought, Yeah, that’s it. Now I know what I’m going to do. So I did my master’s degree, and then …

[00:15:24] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Did you get a chance to talk to her and tell her how much she inspired you? What did you talk about?

[00:15:29] Pam Cunneyworth: Because she was in my department. She came to Simon Fraser University one term every year. And then the other two terms, she was in Kalimantan. So, I came to know her and chatted with her and she was very much my inspiration.

Charlotte Beauvoisin: That’s amazing. And what would she think about what you’re doing now?

[00:15:48] Pam Cunneyworth: I know that she’s inspired so many people and I think even for myself when I see people understand the importance of primate diversity, forest diversity, it is a thrill to say that the next generation, they got it. Because it can get very lonely out there, when you’re actually fighting such a battle for protection of a species, of an ecosystem.

[00:16:18] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Is it lonely because there aren’t enough people who get it? Why is it lonely?

[00:16:23] Pam Cunneyworth: You’re fighting legislation, you’re fighting misconceptions, lack of information, I mean, just baboons, for example.

Baboons are my favourite primate species. People just see their one behaviour: crop raiding.

[00:16:41] Pam Cunneyworth: In Diani people are quite fearful of them. Adult males, in their prime, their head is coming up to my hip. Admittedly, I’m very short! So maybe that’s not a good judge of height, but they’re clever, they’re problem solvers, they’re big, and I think that scares people. Instead of taking the time to actually sit and watch them.

[00:17:05] Pam Cunneyworth: Because they’re in a multi male, multi female group, so we can see a lot of commonalities because we also live in multi male, multi female groups. I just look and say, wow, that “You’re doing this because your younger brother did that to that individual’s mother,” and you can just see that these are not just  “cause and effect” kind of interactions, so they’re really quite complex, and how can you not admire that kind of complexity? It’s that problem solving, that complexity that it is really difficult to stop them from crop raiding. We haven’t come up with an effective way to stop them from crop raiding.

[00:17:50] Charlotte Beauvoisin: I mean, here on the edge of Kibale Forest which is a national park, we have 13 different kinds of primates, plus one, humans, so 14. And we see a lot of baboons. They don’t bother me at all. Apart from that scary muzzle, that dog-like muzzle. And if they do yawn, you do see the big teeth. I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with one. But when I see them, they’re just resting and they’re just feeding so they don’t bother me personally. If baboons crop raid, what we mean by that is that the baboons are going in and eating the whole lot. And if they’re coming in a big group, it’s hard to chase them because they’re really tough. I know you do some really good work down in Diani trying to educate hotels, for example, how to manage baboons because we don’t want to kill them, we don’t want to trap them. They are a tourist attraction in a way, aren’t they? So what’s your advice?

[00:18:43] Pam Cunneyworth: Usually 95% of the interactions between people and baboons are all about food. If you pull food out of that equation, then baboons are not an issue. But people in, for example, hotels, they allow baboons to come into the hotel, into the restaurant. So what we say is, once the baboon is inside, it’s too late to do anything. There’s a video that was going around in South Africa, a baboon jumps on the table and everybody’s panicking. Pandemonium. It’s too late. You should not attempt to remove a baboon at that point.

[00:19:24] Pam Cunneyworth: Because they’re protecting their resource at that point. So that’s when they’re dangerous. What we say is, you have to stop them before they get to the restaurant, or wherever you don’t want them to go. Baboons, even like humans, we all are quite predictable. We know which direction, we know that they come in at, 7.30 for breakfast in the restaurant. They’re predictable. So you get your guards, the hotel guards. Human guards. You get them out there and you stop them 50 meters from the restaurant, as far away as possible. And in fact, you can push them off then.

[00:20:02] Charlotte Beauvoisin: And so do you do that just by your physical presence or do you have a whistle or, I don’t know, a bow and arrow? How do people scare them away?

[00:20:10] Pam Cunneyworth: Usually it’s human adult males who are able to do this because of course in most primate societies the adult males are dominant over the adult female That’s why it’s more difficult for human adult females to push off baboon adult male but if you have human adult males you get them out there, but it has to be a daily thing. It can’t be intermittent and you just have them out every day. You know what time you’re going to come in And just push them on.

[00:20:37] Charlotte Beauvoisin: So that works.

[00:20:38] Pam Cunneyworth: And that works.

[00:20:39] Charlotte Beauvoisin: But what happens if you get to the point where the baboon has jumped on the dining room table in a restaurant? You just leave it?  And then you call an expert?

[00:20:48] Pam Cunneyworth: No, you organize your guards for the next day. It’s not a surprise when and where they’re coming from. So if you get your guards out there, hotels have to invest in guards, and you put them out there when breakfast, lunch, dinner is served. As I said, it’s only about food.

[00:21:06] Charlotte Beauvoisin: And it’s also about making sure that rubbish bins are well covered.

[00:21:10] Pam Cunneyworth: Yeah, it has to be a monkey proof bin. And so you want to just limit access to food. But this is important anyway for hygiene, for reducing any kind of mice or rats, mosquitoes, cockroaches. Having access to food is a problem for hotels that needs to be addressed anyway. But we were in one hotel and they had a rubbish room. The hotel put all their rubbish into a very nice concrete room, but they didn’t have a lock on the door so the baboons just came up and opened the door and walked in. But a $15 or $10 lock would have kept them out, and managed that resource so then the baboons wouldn’t stick around, and they would go off natural foraging instead.

The other thing is a lot of people… (just when we’re talking, we hear baboons in the background)…

[00:22:05] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Interesting because I can hear some kids talking and I’m thinking, are they chasing them?

[00:22:09] Pam Cunneyworth: The other thing is people use, instead of doorknobs, they use door handles. That’s the flat ones. So all the monkeys just pull down on that. But if you just change those, I’m not quite sure what they’re called – door latches – but if you change those to a doorknob that requires twisting and a bit more dexterity, they can’t open that.

And that will reduce a huge amount of conflict. But going back, it’s unlikely that people would be bitten by a baboon. And the reason for that is because baboons live in this multi male, multi female group. They’re actually used to managing conflict. They will give you so many opportunities to back down. They will give you an eyebrow flash. Just as a real mild “I’m uncomfortable with you there. I’m giving you an eyebrow flash.” And if you don’t move away they may jut out their chest, and then if you still don’t walk away, they may slap the ground.

[00:23:14] Pam Cunneyworth: And if you still don’t walk away, they may do a slight lunge. If you still – I mean, by then you should have walked away. I mean, you  really need to be aware! – And then they may you know, take a couple of steps towards you. They give you so many opportunities to back down.

[00:23:32] Charlotte Beauvoisin: So there’s really very little reason to be bitten or even to be scared.

[00:23:38] Pam Cunneyworth: If you have food, that will be the problem. That’s what they want. So the main thing is, don’t have food around primates.

[00:23:49] Charlotte Beauvoisin: We’ve noticed that when we drive through Kibale forest, there are lots of baboons lining the road and there’s one in particular that’s very big and very clever and he sits on one of the speed humps because he knows the vehicles slow down there.

[00:24:01] Pam Cunneyworth: That’s how clever they are!

Charlotte Beauvoisin: I know, they’re brilliant! When we come back from Fort Portal with our shopping, sometimes we put bananas on the dashboard because it’s the best place to put them because they don’t get squashed. But you have to make sure the windows are up when you drive back through the forest because they quickly jump on the vehicle.

I had one jump on the wing mirror once and  it scared the life out of me because it just came out of nowhere and it’s like a small human stuck on the side of the car.

[00:24:28] Pam Cunneyworth: It’s all about food. So they know vehicles have food because people are showing their food, such as bananas on the dashboard or people are throwing food out the window towards them. Vehicles represent food.

[00:24:43] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Haha, they’re joining us for the podcast!

[00:24:48] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Oh look, he’s coming up the steps to see us. Haha. Well, it’s just a reminder that we’re in a bird hide on the edge of Kibale forest. Just a few hundred meters from the forest. We can see it very clearly from here.

[00:25:00] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Several baboons around us as we speak, olive baboons.

Pam Cunneyworth: That was a female and she wasn’t pregnant. You can tell by looking at the backside of a baboon a lot about who they are. You can tell male, female by the structure of their bottom and also when a female is pregnant, the skin around the hardened patches that they sit on, that goes from black to pink. And it becomes really bright, bright pink just before she gives birth.

[00:25:28] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Well this touches on your PhD, and please tell us a little bit about that. So you’re studying at the University of Kent, and the topic is?

[00:25:37] Pam Cunneyworth: It’s Linear Infrastructure and Ecology. So in Diani, as I mentioned before, we have Diani Beach Road, which bisects the town. It goes straight through the middle of the town.

Primates, we count all of them every October. We have 1,500 monkeys living within 7 sq km. Just stepping back one step, we have 6 primates that live in Diani, in an urban area. We have 2 Galagoes, people call them bush babies. They’re a primitive primate, and we have four species of monkey, so, this is highly, highly unusual, so if you love primates, come to Diani. There literally is a primate on every corner. All the monkeys, when this road went in, they have to cross the road to access the resources on the opposite sides of the road. Access to water, to foraging areas, sleeping sites.

[00:26:29] Pam Cunneyworth: There’s more and more vehicles all the time as Diani is growing. Instead of animals getting hit on the road, they come to the roadside, they get quite afraid of the vehicles, and then they turn around and go back. So what we see is the number of vehicle collisions with monkeys dropping. Everybody thinks, ah, this is a good thing.

[00:26:51] Pam Cunneyworth: But it’s not. What’s happening is the barrier of the road is increasing. So you have fewer animals crossing.

[00:27:00] Charlotte Beauvoisin: And they need to cross for genetic mixing, is that right?

[00:27:04] Pam Cunneyworth: Yes, so otherwise you would have two separate populations, one on either side of the road. And as you said, they’re not meeting for mating, so their genetics become more isolated, they don’t have access in a year of drought to those trees that they could survive on. So, access to resources goes down, genetic variability goes down, access to sleeping sites goes down. Overall, those two populations become more vulnerable, more vulnerable to extinction.

[00:27:34] Charlotte Beauvoisin: It’s lovely to be talking to you, hearing baboons on all sides of us now.

So tell us a bit about the ideas you have for crossing. You have the canopy walkways already, do you call them canopy walkways, is that the right term?

[00:27:46] Pam Cunneyworth: We call them, in Diani we call them colobridges, for colobus bridges. So they were set up in early 1997 and that was to start getting Colobus crossing the road, above the road.

[00:28:01] Charlotte Beauvoisin: So if you’re driving down the road in Diani, you can see these monkeys using these bridges.

[00:28:06] Pam Cunneyworth: Correct. On the nine kilometer section of road through Diani, we’ve got 31 bridges. But we’re hoping to do a big fundraiser and we would like 100 bridges up there.

As they’re crossing the bridges, they’re reducing the risk of collisions with vehicles. But what we know now is even colobus start getting afraid of using the bridges, once the number of vehicles increases.

We don’t know whether it’s noise or just seeing them, the Sykes monkeys use them much more often, but the Colobus, right now we know that Colobus only cross Diani Beach Road on the bridges.

[00:28:45] Charlotte Beauvoisin: And you said something interesting yesterday, which is that these are arboreal monkeys, so they use trees to move. They can’t just cross the road like you and I would.

[00:28:55] Pam Cunneyworth: Correct. In Diani, we’ve got the four species We’ve got colobus, which are arboreal, Sykes monkeys, which are also mostly arboreal, Vervets, which are more mostly terrestrial and baboons that are terrestrial.

[00:29:08] So they use the bridges at varying rates. We’ve studied this and we know that 3% of the colobus population annually (so every year) get hit by vehicles. So this is almost unsustainable. But the problem is you put in the power line next to the road so the distance between the trees on opposite side of the road actually becomes quite formidable for the crossings.

[00:29:35] Charlotte Beauvoisin: You’ve contributed so much to Diani. I was looking at TripAdvisor. Colobus Conservation is number two tourist attraction in Diani. Number one is the beach. The beach is absolutely mind blowing. It’s been voted the best beach in Africa, I think, five years in a row.

So, I mean, congratulations for all the work you’ve done from a tourism point of view as much as conservation. Perhaps we could talk a little bit about Diani. So, you live in Nairobi, but your projects are based in Diani, but you’ve been visiting for many years.

[00:30:08] Pam Cunneyworth: Oh yeah, 21 years ago I started. I go back and forth every couple of months, but, I work closely with the management team as we put together a huge range of different projects. So we’ve just done the genetics on the colobus in Diani and Tanzania. We’re now doing another genetic study about the microbiome of the colobus infants.

[00:30:32] And we’ve looked at the North American zoos. and the colobus there and their genetics and actually where they were captured in the 1980s in Tanzania. And then we’re also looking at the reforestation of this biodiversity hotspot, looking at just the indigenous species, of which in Diani we may have only one individual tree of a species remaining.

[00:30:58] We are working with Kenya Power on reducing the electrocutions. We’re working with the Roads Authority to reduce vehicle collisions. We’re working with others to reduce snaring, dogs killing primates. We do a huge amount in terms of education and we’re doing a new project. school curriculum on conservation and nature connectedness and what kind of conservation actions a 12 year old living in a rural community: what can they do? What’s in their power to do? As a young person learning about conservation, such as, don’t kill snakes, don’t harm birds nests, because the scientific literature on conservation education in developing countries is only a handful of papers. So, we have to do things quite differently here compared to what they do in a developed country. For example, our kids often don’t have access to lunches, so we provide snacks and lunches and water to make sure that you know, they’re focused.

[00:32:10] Charlotte Beauvoisin: They’re taking in all this great info that you have for them. And you have a visitor centre, so that’s open to anyone, tourists and of course local children. Do you have big groups come to visit you?

[00:32:21] Pam Cunneyworth: We do, we have a one hour eco tour so you can show up Monday to Saturday, nine till four. Come and go through our brand new eco center that we’ve done and then you can see the veterinary clinic, the monkeys that are just about to be released back to the wild that came in as pets, confiscated as pets, or came in as wild orphans.

[00:32:46] We have also a tree nursery there with all these indigenous species that we’re replanting. So, in that one hour, we show you what we do.

[00:32:54] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Well, there’s a lot to take in and it’s a really fantastic project. Diani is a tourist destination.

As somebody who’s been visiting and spent so much time there over the last couple of decades, what are your personal favorite things to do in Diani?

[00:33:10] Pam Cunneyworth: I can only tell you what things are there. When I go, I go to Colobus Conservation, and I literally, we’d go out to the project sites constantly thinking, “how do we do that? You know, what mitigates this?” So I don’t have an opportunity to use the amazing golf course that’s there, or even to swim in the ocean, or enjoy the beach, but they have so many different water sports to do. There’s Wasini Island.

[00:33:43] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Just to tell our listeners a little bit about Diani, for those who don’t know it, it’s indescribably beautiful beaches. I mean, they’re long, they’re wide, they’re pure white sand, aren’t they? Sort of like snow or talcum powder even. And the Indian Ocean is the biggest draw, arguably, for most people to Diani.

But it’s really undeveloped, isn’t it? No high rise apartments, it’s very low key, lots of thatched constructions. I’m sure that you must have seen a lot of changes, but I think compared to many other beach destinations globally, it’s still pretty low key.

[00:34:19] Pam Cunneyworth: It is but it’s changing quite rapidly, and there’s a new highway coming in from Mombasa. Right now you have to take a ferry to get to Mombasa, but the new bridge is coming in, which we expect to have huge amounts of development because of that. We’re just hoping we can manage these primate populations and the forest well, we can, you know, get the development to be sustainable and not lose everything.

[00:34:48] And I think this is a common issue around the world. You have these beautiful places. They’re so beautiful, everybody wants to live there, and then they stop being so beautiful. But right now, Diani has these amazing beaches, some times of the year there are whale sharks going by, humpback whales, and then, I mean, even volunteering at Colobus Conservation.

[00:35:12] I mean, I volunteered in really, really remote areas! But in Diani, you spend the day doing conservation, and in the evening, you can go to the disco. You could go, I mean, on the weekends, you can go for a swim in the Indian Ocean. I mean, it’s really quite amazing for a volunteer opportunity.

[00:35:31] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Let’s just tell people a few of the many, many things you can do in Diani: snorkeling and diving, of course. Coral reefs. You can see dolphins, turtles, rays. You can go kite surfing. You can ride a camel. You can go horse riding, stand up paddle boarding, you can go on a glass bottomed boat. And Shimba Hills is only about half an hour away, so that’s a good safari destination, isn’t it? What kind of wildlife could you expect to see in Shimba Hills?

[00:35:58] Pam Cunneyworth: People most of the time go for elephants. And elephants come and go from the reserve because it attaches to Tsavo National Park and Mwaluganje Elephant Sanctuary. I believe that Daphne Sheldrick is just setting up a reserve up there near Shimba Hills so there should be access to elephants at some point.

[00:36:16] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Diani really does have everything because if it’s not in Diani, it’s only a short drive away. So, if somebody wanted to have a Kenyan safari and beach holiday, it would be a great base, wouldn’t it?

[00:36:27] Pam Cunneyworth: A lot of people do their safaris and then spend the last week in Diani just to relax and enjoy, just chilling out on the beach or around the pool. Watching the monkeys, watching the colobus in the tree above the pool.

[00:36:39] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Fantastic. I wanted to ask you a bit more about your journey to where you are now because I know you spent some time in Burundi, and you also worked in Tanzania, so you really have a 360 degree perspective on East Africa.

[00:36:54] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Tell us a bit about your time in Burundi.

[00:36:57] Pam Cunneyworth: That was with the Jane Goodall Institute, working in a chimpanzee sanctuary; they were confiscating chimpanzees from the pet trade. That was a long time ago. Those chimpanzees now are in Sweet Waters, which is in Kenya, in a sanctuary there.

[00:37:15] Then I started working, studying baboons for two years in a national park in Tanzania, in Mikumi. And that was a long term baboon project. Three years in the Usumbara Mountains. And that was where I met Julia Lloyd, who, of course, runs Sunbird Hill. She and I worked together for several years in the Usumbara Mountains doing biodiversity surveys. After that time, she came to Uganda, and she’s been here ever since, and I moved to Kenya.

I worked with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on Climate Change, and then I started at Colobus Conservation. In between all of that, I went to Asia, just to see what that’s like, and I worked with gibbons there in Thailand. I’ve worked with quite a few different primates, which is helping with the PhD, as I’m able to bring in a lot of knowledge from a lot of different species. So as we look at the roads and the power lines and the ecology behind that, I can start thinking about what this means for conservation managers globally who are dealing with different species. But we’re all having the same issues.

[00:38:29] Charlotte Beauvoisin: I think it’s really interesting how studying one species so closely can actually bring so many lessons that can be shared globally. I think I say that because I didn’t quite understand why somebody would go so niche on a particular topic. But now I understand your work better.

[00:38:48] Pam Cunneyworth: Diani is unique because of these six primates that live in the town. So for the work that we’re doing on the road and the power lines we’re comparing the four monkeys. We’ve got one colobine. One arboreal guenon, one baboon, and the vervet, which is more terrestrial. So, we can really get an understanding of how this infrastructure impacts widely varying species, rather than just one species, studying across four taxonomic groups.

[00:39:23] Charlotte Beauvoisin: What advice would you give someone wishing to follow in your footsteps?

[00:39:27] Pam Cunneyworth: As soon as I graduated with my Masters, within the week, I was on a plane to Nairobi. I’d never been to sub Saharan Africa, but I felt like I was going home. My mother was so supportive, and I just came with a backpack, and a one year open ticket, which we could get back then, and my mom just said, “Go. This is what you’ve talked about for a long time.” There were certain other family members who didn’t want me to go, because it was risky, just as a solo female backpacker, but a friend of mine, when I left, had written out a poem for me by Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken:

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth… ”

[00:40:17] Pam Cunneyworth: I have taken that “road less travelled” and it has made all the difference. This is what Pam was destined to do. You take opportunities when they come. Courage is not having a lack of fear, but feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Because these things take courage. Usually there’s a bit of luck involved. Certainly a lot of hard work. Certainly people say you can’t do it. But you just get on with it. You work hard. Take the opportunities when they come. And don’t listen to those naysayers.

[00:40:54] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that, Pam. Last but not least, Pam, I wanted to ask you what brings you to Sunbird Hill?

[00:41:00] Pam Cunneyworth: I come every six months or so and I have for quite a few years to see Julia because we have a similar background in biodiversity surveys; we both have this passion for wild areas. It’s great to come and see what she’s doing. We can brainstorm. And last year we went to Karamoja to do a biodiversity survey there with her team. Her team is amazing and they’re so good with their birds and butterflies and we got that information as well as they were picking up on all the other mammals that we were seeing.

[00:41:37] Charlotte Beauvoisin: You were in Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve, which is Northeastern Uganda, quite undeveloped. And tell us a bit about Pian Upe. How is it different to Diani or to this area?

[00:41:50] Pam Cunneyworth: It’s had a lot of insecurity for a long time so it’s just opening up. It was really lovely to meet the people that were living around the reserve.

[00:42:01] They hadn’t been around a lot of foreigners. And it was nice just to see them relaxed and showing us their culture in a non-touristy way.

[00:42:12] Charlotte Beauvoisin: So were they from the Karamojong tribe? You were up in Pian Upe doing a survey with Julia and the Sunbird Hill team of site guides and major nature enthusiasts. They’re into everything, aren’t they?

So what was a typical day for you like up there?

[00:42:33] Pam Cunneyworth: We got up very early to get out at first light so that we can start. The team is amazing on their bird calls. I was mostly recording as they were calling out the bird species, writing down the GPS location so that we could start mapping what we were seeing once we got back to Sunbird Hill and just seeing what kind of species and densities we were seeing in the different areas as the area was so insecure for so many years. Now it is more secure, so I believe they’re thinking about bringing in tourists. I think a lodge is going in.

[00:43:14] Charlotte Beauvoisin: That’s right, yes, and camps and so on. So the information that you’ve got is good for biodiversity monitoring and science, but there’s also a tourism aspect, isn’t there? Once you know what’s there, you can promote the place, and then when money comes in, that helps with reforestation and lots of other activities.

[00:43:31] Charlotte Beauvoisin: There’s quite a lot of development work, I think, going up there isn’t there? Northeastern, Karamoja. Habitat restoration so hopefully in a few years time – when you go back and do a similar survey – you will see there are more species, they’re more widely spread, and so on.

Why do you work in conservation?

[00:43:52] Pam Cunneyworth: Oh, that’s a very good question. It’s not what I do, it’s who I am.

My daughter gave me a mug last year for Christmas, and it said “I may be looking at you, you may think I’m listening to you, but in fact I’m thinking about monkeys.” And that’s my coffee cup every morning. And It’s true. Anything can be happening and I can revert it back to primates or ecosystems or forests.

[00:44:32] That’s my frame for looking at anything in the world. So it’s not what I do, it’s who I am.

[00:44:40] Charlotte Beauvoisin: That’s very touching.

[00:44:44] Pam Cunneyworth: But I’m looking at you but I’m still thinking about monkeys.

[00:44:47] Charlotte Beauvoisin: I know. Hello Pam, it’s me!

I just wanted to say thank you very much Pam for being part of the East Africa Travel Podcast. It was fascinating to learn more about your projects.

[00:44:58] Pam Cunneyworth: Thank you for having me. It’s really great to be able to tell you and your listeners all about the work that we’re doing in Diani. And I think we need to go follow these baboons and see where they take us!

[00:45:10] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Oh yes. Let’s do that.

Well, it hasn’t been perfect, but we’ve done it! We have just come to the end of season one, a series of 20 podcasts.

It’s been a hard decision to put the podcast on hold for a while, but I firstly wanted to thank you so much for listening to the podcast. It really means a lot to me. I’ve been getting interesting feedback from friends, family, colleagues from all around the world, but I really wanted to pause and reflect on the episodes we’ve had so far and to ask for your feedback.

Tell me what you like, tell me what you want more of, less of, it’s okay. Please tell me exactly what you like to hear and allow me to digest it as we plan the next few episodes.

Thank you for the reviews on Apple. Thank you for the rankings on Spotify. I can’t see the names of everyone who’s rated or ranked the podcast, but I do appreciate every single click and comment.

[00:46:17] Charlotte Beauvoisin: Massive thanks to my guests for sparing the time to be on the podcast and for believing in me and trusting me when you didn’t know how it was all going to come out.

• Thank you so much to Philip Briggs, Bradt travel writer, guidebook writer extraordinaire, and friend of Sunbird Hill.
• Thank you to Ian Redmond, OBE, fantastic public speaker. I learned so much from talking to him.
• Dr. Michael Ochse, the entomologist, who knew that moths could be so interesting?
• Chris Ketola of Fauna Forever. The conversation with him was so popular that it featured in the Sunday Monitor, Uganda’s newspaper. And Chris had such an amazing time in Uganda that he’s going to be back in 2025, bringing more volunteers on a research trip.
• Professor Richard Wrangham. What a delightful man. One of these amazing people that I’ve met through Julia Lloyd and Sunbird Hill. I really enjoyed my few minutes with him and really whet my appetite for spending more time talking to him, reading his books.
• How did you like being in the tent with me in Kyambura Game Reserve (Wildplaces camp) when I had the hippos outside? I really love that recording and I’m hoping to do more episodes like that. I really want you to come on more safaris with me.
• Rob Walker: I heard his voice on TV recently. He’s been commentating on the Olympics, the Paralympics in Paris. And if you’re curious as to the attraction of Uganda as a tourism destination, check out that episode if you haven’t listened to it. I always come away with a smile on my face when I talk to Rob because he just exudes enthusiasm.
• I hope you enjoyed our visit to the Original Maasai lodge in Tanzania. The Maasai music is so hypnotic, really talks to me on a really deep level.
• If you missed any of these episodes, please go back and have a listen. Every episode has a transcript, if it’s on Apple, and we have transcripts of all the episodes with lots of links on Diary of a Muzungu, my blog as well.
• Last but not least, I had a conversation with the Nnaabagareka, Queen Sylvia of Buganda Kingdom. She is very well known in Uganda as being married to the Kabaka, who is the king of the biggest traditional kingdom here. You could tell how excited she was to have seen the gorillas, and I really loved her passion for protecting trees and encouraging Ugandans to travel. So listen out for that episode, episode three, in case you missed that one.

And interspersed with all of these great conversations were me wandering along, rambling along the edge of the forest. Hopefully you found a bit of the travel advice useful too. And if there’s a topic that I haven’t covered or someone you’d like me to talk to, just send me a message.

Of course, there’s tons of information on my blog as well: Diary of a Muzungu that I’ve been writing since 2008. We have the Facebook page of the same name that’s well known for giving all kinds of travel advice. So just drop me a message if there’s anything I can help you with.

And if you just do one thing as a result of listening today, would you just share this episode with one friend who you know loves nature or wants to learn a little bit more about conservation?

I reckon if everybody shares with one person then might double the number of listeners when we resume.

Season two, what’s coming up? Well, the first thing to mention is you. What would you like to hear? Who do you want on?

A few of the episodes we already have scheduled are:

• African grey parrots and the work of the World Parrot Trust;
• Old Town Mombasa, I’ll tell you a little about my trip there and some tips for getting there.
• Things to do when you’re on the coast in Kenya
• The sea turtle festival in Diani. I was invited to watch baby turtles being released into the ocean. That was very special.
• Those are just a few of the episodes I have planned. I’m heading to Rwanda quite soon for Kwita Izina gorilla naming ceremony which is taking place in October 2024. That’s going to be the 20th edition of the event. I’m going to be there, and I’m going to be recording a podcast episode all about that event, so that’s coming up too, that’s going to be a very interesting episode, I’m sure.

And before I sign off from season one, I just wanted to give a special thank you to my team: Bryan Kisembo. Thanks Bryan for all your technical support and advice over the last few months.

Thank you, Sam Risbond, my trusted web developer who I’ve worked with for many years.

Lynsay Anne Gould of the Podcast Boutique. Thank you, Lynsay, for all your strategy advice.

Thank you, Julia. Julia Lloyd, the brains behind Sunbird Hill and the NGO In the Shadow of Chimpanzees. Julia’s the opposite of me. I’m “look at me, listen to me” and Julia’s there in the background pushing everyone else forward. Jules: this podcast, every single episode of the East Africa Travel Podcast is dedicated to you.

Holly Woodward, Liz Warner, my lovely mum, Liz Beauvoisin, and my dad, Chris. Thank you for all your support, your words of wisdom along the way, and my media colleagues: Professor Wolfgang Thome in Uganda, Harriet Owalla in Nairobi, and Beewol, Tony Musho, Edgar Batte, Tony Ofungi, Jonathan Benaiah and Derrick Ssenyonyi, who sent me some very supportive words when I launched. Big thank you to all of you for being a part, big and small, of the East Africa Travel Podcast.

Really looking forward to season two already.

In the meantime: stay positive folks, enjoy nature. And if you remember going back to episode one and episode two, it was walking in nature on the edge of the national park during lockdown that inspired me to create this podcast for you. I wanted to capture the sounds of nature and it was those moments that kept me positive during lockdown when we didn’t really know what was next, did we? But connecting with nature, being outside, looking at a tree, a butterfly, a bird, living in the moment, that is what kept me motivated. And that sentiment still holds. And if you’re outside, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know what you’re looking at. You don’t need to know the Latin name, but just enjoy it.

On that note, let me say thank you again. Asante sana. Mwebale nyo. And you’ll hear from me again soon.

You’ve been listening to the East Africa Travel Podcast. My name’s Charlotte Beauvoisin, author of Diary of a Muzungu.

Bye!