How Humans Benefit From a Highway of Trails Created by African Forest Elephants
The paths the pachyderms make aid plants, other animals, and local people—whose way of life is threatened by the species’ decline
By Helen Santoro
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
OCTOBER 15, 2020
Early one summer morning, anthropologist Carolyn Jost Robinson woke up in a campsite nestled in the dense, tangled rainforest of the Central African Republic. The cacophony of African grey parrots and cicadas filled her ears and the smell of the rich clay soil—musty decay with a hint of cocoa—permeated her nostrils.
Using a highway of winding trails formed by African forest elephants, Jost Robinson navigated to her research site in the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Area, which lies in the republic’s southernmost tip. “You’re lost in your mind—the smells and the sounds,” says Jost Robinson, who is director of sociocultural research and community engagement at Chengeta Wildlife, an organization that trains and supports anti-poaching operations.
For decades, Jost Robinson and Melissa Remis, a professor and head of the anthropology department at Purdue University, have traveled to this Dzanga-Sangha and followed the intricate elephant trails to study the behaviors of western lowland gorillas and small antelopes called duikers. But for many years, they never stopped to look at the trails themselves. “When you’re doing research it’s easy to forget what you’re moving through,” says Jost Robinson. In 2012, they decided to study the paths that gave them easy access to water, campsites and data. It was then that they fully recognized the significance of this complex networks of trails.
Now, in a study published this August in American Anthropologist, Remis and Jost Robinson examined how elephants have shaped the landscape and created paths that are essential for researchers, animals and locals alike. “They are the engineers of the forest,” says Remis.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-humans-benefit-highway-trails-created-african-forest-elephants-180976045/