Local portrayals of chimpanzees in southern Guinea-Bissau exemplify various aspects of human and non-human social lives. In the area designated as Cantanhez National Park, chimpanzees and people coexist in a patchy environment of agriculture, fallow land, forests, mangroves, orchards and farms. The chimpanzee, and the sub-humid forests that count among its habitats, have been the flagship species of Cantanhez since 2002. Thus, official nature conservation activities are focused on the chimpanzee-forest association. This association is commonly portrayed as fragile, but mutually-dependent, and put at risk by local peoples' farming activities. This paper is based on thirteen months of fieldwork in Cantanhez conducting semi-structured interviews, participant observation and informal conversations. For local people, chimpanzees belong to the bush, which is an extensive and relative concept of a physical and social space. At the same time, the chimpanzee’s figure also carries different meanings. The “bush chimpanzee” is the one conceptually closest to the “forest chimpanzee” defined by nature conservation, but distinct from the “village chimpanzee”, which is a manifestation of witchcraft. Similarly, the chimpanzee as a common ancestor in oral accounts of the past is distinct from the chimpanzee portrayed as kin to conservationists, who harm their fellow humans, i.e. local farmers, at the expense of chimpanzees’ welfare. Chimpanzees, as wise and intelligent consumers of crops, can also shape-shift into voracious, stubborn creatures that feed on the same or other crops. The different meanings of chimpanzees, how they are used and who uses them provide important lines of reflection about the local cosmology of people and chimpanzees. We argue that previously effective flagship species can become inappropriate if nature conservation strategies are thought oppressive. Consequently, it is crucial to understand how local people situate animal species, the way species shift in different discourses, and why.
