Colonial conservation tech: How AI and digital twins in Gombe obscure systemic failures while reinforcing extractive surveillance of great apes

Indigenous perspectives view chimpanzee conservation as inseparable from the health of human communities and sacred landscapes, where species decline signals a breakdown in reciprocal relationships with the land. The Wagogo and other groups in Tanzania have long practiced agroecological methods that maintain forest corridors essential for chimpanzee movement, yet these systems are systematically undermined by conservation policies that prioritize Western scientific frameworks over traditional knowledge. The erasure of Indigenous voices in Gombe’s narrative reflects a broader pattern where colonial conservation models treat local people as threats rather than partners, despite evidence that community-led conservation achieves superior biodiversity outcomes.

The Gombe research station, established in 1960, emerged alongside colonial-era conservation policies that framed Africa’s landscapes as 'wilderness' to be preserved for Western science, erasing Indigenous land use histories. Over the past six decades, Tanzania’s chimpanzee population has declined by over 50%, with habitat loss accelerating due to logging, mining, and agricultural expansion—trends that parallel global patterns of ecological collapse under neoliberal capitalism. The narrative’s focus on '60 years of continuous field research' obscures how these same decades saw the rise of fortress conservation, which displaced Indigenous communities and criminalized subsistence practices under the guise of protection.

While Western conservation often frames chimpanzees as 'endangered species' requiring external intervention, many African cultures see them as part of a shared moral community, where their decline reflects broader environmental and spiritual crises. In West and Central Africa, Indigenous groups like the Bantu and Pygmy peoples have co-evolved with great apes for millennia, developing taboos and land management practices that sustain biodiversity without the need for AI surveillance. However, the dominance of Western conservation narratives in global media—such as this one—risks homogenizing these diverse perspectives, presenting techno-solutions as universally applicable while ignoring the cultural specificity of human-wildlife relationships.

Scientific evidence increasingly shows that AI and geospatial tools, while useful for tracking species, are ineffective at addressing the structural drivers of biodiversity loss, such as deforestation, climate change, and human-wildlife conflict. Studies in Gombe and other sites demonstrate that habitat destruction and poaching—often driven by global commodity chains—are the primary threats to chimpanzees, yet these are rarely addressed in tech-centric conservation narratives. Moreover, the reliance on 'ecological digital twins' risks creating a false sense of control, where data becomes a substitute for policy action, ignoring the fact that conservation outcomes are more strongly correlated with governance quality and community engagement than technological sophistication.

Artistic and spiritual traditions across Africa often depict chimpanzees as sacred beings or ancestral messengers, with their decline interpreted as a sign of societal and ecological imbalance. In Tanzanian folklore, chimpanzees are sometimes seen as tricksters or guardians of the forest, their behaviors mirroring human social structures—a perspective that contrasts sharply with the Western scientific framing of them as 'data points' in a conservation algorithm. The erasure of these narratives in mainstream media reflects a broader devaluation of Indigenous cosmologies, where conservation is not just an ecological but a spiritual imperative, tied to the health of both land and community.

Future scenarios for chimpanzee conservation must prioritize land tenure reform, Indigenous sovereignty, and the dismantling of fortress conservation models, rather than doubling down on surveillance technologies that reinforce colonial power structures. Without addressing the root causes of habitat loss—such as global demand for palm oil, minerals, and timber—AI-driven interventions will remain palliative, treating symptoms rather than curing the disease. Scenario planning should also consider the ethical risks of AI in conservation, including data colonialism, algorithmic bias, and the potential for these tools to be co-opted by extractive industries or authoritarian regimes to justify further land grabs.

The voices of Tanzanian communities—particularly those displaced by Gombe National Park or marginalized by conservation policies—are entirely absent from this narrative, despite their critical role in shaping alternative conservation futures. Women, who often bear the brunt of human-wildlife conflict and resource scarcity, are especially underrepresented in discussions about chimpanzee conservation, even though their knowledge of local ecosystems and non-timber forest products is invaluable. The framing also ignores the perspectives of Tanzanian scientists and conservationists who advocate for community-led approaches, instead centering Western researchers and tech firms as the primary authorities on 'solutions.'