DRY, EVERGREEN FORESTS and rugged rocky outcrops dot the sprawling grasslands of Ghana’s Shai Hills Resource Reserve. The region’s varied ecosystem is home to a wide range of wildlife, including green monkeys, spot-nosed monkeys, and baboons. These primates depend on scattered woodlands of Baobab, Acacia, and Shea trees, as well as the reserve’s broader landscape for shelter and a diet of fruits, seeds, and insects. However, in recent years, they have come to rely more and more on human food sources to supplement their natural diet, and some have begun to adopt more creative strategies in their search for food as well.

Baboons have proven among the most adaptable and aggressive in expanding foraging sources. Researchers have discovered that baboons are targeting homes and schools in Shai Hills communities on the edges of the reserve for food. Their findings reveal that troops of baboons, between 10 and 30 strong, routinely conduct organized scavenging raids on schools where they take food from students, significantly affecting the quality of education in these rural communities.

The findings are based on interviews, focus group discussions, and responses from 200 questionnaires with residents who have lived within 100 meters of the Shai Hills Resource Reserve for at least two years. The study involved a mix of males and females across various occupations, including students, teachers, farmers, traders, and artisans, all of whom attended basic school at some point.

“All interviewees held strong and common views that classes got disrupted as pupils ran out, shouted, screamed or panicked upon seeing the baboons at their school premises,” the researchers wrote. In addition to the loss of instructional time, their findings indicate that the threat of these attacks led to increased student lateness, truancy, and even school dropouts as measures to avoid aggressive baboon encounters.

Responses to the questionnaire highlight a disproportionate impact on the education of female students, with 80 percent of female respondents — compared to 40 percent of males — reporting a significant increase in the risk of school dropout due to these raids. The researchers note that, “The possibility of more female pupils dropping out of school for reasons of fear of baboons … has the potential to constrain enrollment, disturb effective studying during school periods, and endanger successful completion of girls in basic schools.”

In addition to concerns about education, the Shai Hills study raises a critical question about wildlife behavior: Why have these baboons come to rely on human food as a routine scavenging source?

Research indicates that primates often turn to human food to supplement their traditional diets due to its abundance, easy access, and high nutrient content. In Shai Hills, the raids on schools and homes near the reserve may also stem from a shortage of traditional food sources. Despite pockets of dry forest containing fruit-bearing trees, which usually indicate food availability for primates, these woodlands are relatively scarce and scattered across Shai Hills, where grasslands account for the majority of the landscape. The close proximity of neighboring communities to the reserve’s boundaries, and the decreasing buffer zone between villages and primate habitat, may also encourage the behavior.

“Baboons spent fewer hours in the reserve during the daytime, most likely due to scarcity of suitable food,” the researchers wrote. They observed that, of the average six hours spent searching for food during the day, the baboons spent only two hours in the morning foraging in traditional areas before expanding their search into neighboring communities.

Studies on the impact of wildlife raids on education are limited compared to research on the socio-economic disruption of crop raids, which have long devastated rural communities throughout Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. Still, a handful of studies show that baboons are not the only animals influencing the quality of education for communities along the fringes of nature reserves. A three-year research initiative focused on the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya investigated the effects of human-elephant conflict on children’s education. The study uncovered that “a hidden cost for communities living with elephants was a negative impact on children’s education, due to disturbance of children traveling to school.”

Additional research in Baringo North Sub-County, Kenya, examines the impact of human-wildlife conflict on socio-economic and educational advancement in the region. The study’s findings show an increased risk of animal attacks on children in communities located near nature reserves, a risk related in particular to their walk to school. Among these incidents, snakes were reported as the primary aggressors, accounting for 37.3 percent of attacks, followed by elephants at 25.5 percent, crocodiles at 13.5 percent, and buffalo at 12.4 percent, with hyenas and rhinos having the lowest incidence rates at 1.20 percent.

A GROWING BODY OF evidence suggests that empowering communities living adjacent to protected wildlife zones may offer the most effective and sustainable solution to the problem of wildlife-human conflict. A study conducted in 2023 at the Bia Biosphere Reserve in Ghana, for example, where local communities experience frequent raids on crops and livestock, recommends that a Community Engagement and Participation (CEP) approach to wildlife management can offer a more equitable and dynamic framework for conflict mitigation. Adopting a CEP approach requires local wildlife officials to revise traditional top-down wildlife management methods. Rather than making decisions internally and imposing them on local communities, the study suggests involving local stakeholders in the decision-making process to improve conflict mitigation strategies and overall conservation efforts.

“Coexistence is vital to conservation efforts,” write the researchers. “Engaging communities in wildlife management increases their understanding, awareness, and sense of ownership over wildlife conservation.”

In the Bia Biosphere Reserve study area, local residents voiced frustration over their interactions with wildlife officials. They described feeling “sidelined” by conservation priorities and reported a lack of trust due to past experiences with wildlife management approaches. They also felt their traditional knowledge was underutilized and that wildlife professionals should “collaborate with them to gain insights into wildlife movement patterns to help inform conflict mitigation strategies.”

In regions where local people have been historically marginalized — including around nature and game reserves that have displaced and excluded people from the landscape — the researchers advocate that wildlife officials dedicate time and patience to active communication to restore community trust. That includes organizing public meetings and focus groups. These forums offer local residents a platform to share their perspectives on wildlife conflict. They can also lead to better solutions. Including community input and incorporating local wisdom provides officials with a chance to identify all stakeholders, understand the diverse impacts of management decisions, and gain a practical understanding of the strengths and limitations of proposed mitigation strategies, informed by local insights.

The study also suggests integrating traditional human-wildlife conflict mitigation methods — like fencing, auditory scare tactics, relocation, non-lethal deterrents, and financial compensation — with CEP-based strategies, such as community-based conservation, educational campaigns, land use planning, and citizen science. The researchers believe this combined approach could create a more dynamic and effective strategy for addressing wildlife conflicts.

Ultimately, fostering trust and understanding between local communities and wildlife officials may present the best option for addressing the challenges of human-wildlife conflicts. The findings from the Shai Hills research, along with these additional studies, highlight the importance of understanding the diverse impacts of human-wildlife conflict surrounding nature reserves. Recognizing that these conflicts extend beyond crop raiding and affect communities on nuanced social, psychological, and economic levels could be a valuable step toward building local trust and increasing community participation in conflict mitigation and wildlife management.