Masindi, Uganda – less than half a kilometer from the Aliyo Sarile Tobacco farm, the wild border of the Budongo forest, an emerald canopy wall and wild vegetation marking a border.
Each dawn, Aliyo wakes up towards the orchestra of nature: the tiring birds, the chimpanzees in hoot in trees and baboons barking commandments – a soundtrack which is not nuisance or entertainment in its daily life.
But the balance of the forest has changed. Chimpanzees and baboons now regularly emerge from their green kingdom to attack Aliyo’s land, devouring its harvests and fruit, sometimes trapping its vulnerable tobacco sowing under their hands and curious feet.
When these wild neighbors appear, Aliyo shouts or signals a robust stick to recover his territory.
“I try not to touch them or where they touched because I know that these animals can spread diseases,” he said.
These unwanted visits are not random.
More than a decade ago, responding to growing global tobacco demand, local farmers have stripped the Budongo forest of its palm trees Raphia Farinifera to make hardening ropes, eliminating without knowing a critical source of essential minerals in primates.
This ecological disturbance has led primates to consume bat excrement, which according to a 2024 Study published in Nature Contains many viruses concerning, some of which are linked to the SRAS, the coronavirus family which has generated COVID-19.
This apparently harmless food change has created what experts now recognize as a potential path for devastating harmful viruses on bats to move from human fauna to human populations, preparing the field for a devastating spill event, shortly after the lives upset by COVVI-19 around the world.
A large army of viruses circulates silently throughout the animal world, and sometimes these house the biological barriers between species, infiltrating human bodies and triggering a disease. Fatal epidemics Throughout history, including the plague, Spanish flu and COVID-19, started in animals before spreading to humans. Scientists call this zoonotic overflow.
Uganda is held at a particular crossroads of this viral vulnerability, frequently fighting against epidemics of Marburg, Mpox and Ebola. More recently, the country faced an epidemic of Ebola that started in January.
At the moment, even if there is no clear sign of danger in animals or the potential for human colonization in the Fonds de Budongo, Uganda must be prepared, explains Dr Deograetias Sekimi, expert in public health and technical advisor at the Uganda National Association of Community Health, a local non -governmental organization.
“Early detection is the real challenge,” said Henry Kyobe Bbosa, an incident commander of the Ministry of Health, who helped manage Uganda’s response to Covid-19, Mpox and the Sudan Ebola epidemic. “The easiest part is that when we have declared the epidemic, the rest of the other response mechanisms are activated and quickly put in place.”
In this forest, humans and fauna regularly share the same resources, creating paths so that pathogens cross the barriers of species.
“People come to get water from the ponds inside the forest, the very source from which animals get water,” explains Simon Peter Ogola, forest environment and research coordinator in Budongo Conservation Field Station.
The triggers of new diseases – deforestation, hunting, urbanization, climate change and industrial agriculture – are well documented by scientists, but it is not always clear how these activities create paths for pathogens to jump between species. Precise organic chain reactions can remain hidden in ecological dead corners.
In Budongo, the study of nature reveals a clear chain: the demand for tobacco has led to deforestation, which forced food changes in primates.
And while Uganda tobacco agriculture decreased after the 2015 tobacco law, production has recently increased, with 32,965 metric tonnes in 2022 reaching 33,600 in 2023, and projections of 35,600 metric tonnes by 2028. This growth worries experts on additional discussion.
There are about 75,000 tobacco producers in Uganda. In 2023, Uganda exported $ 67.9 million in raw tobacco, making it the 10th most exported product in the country, according to data from the Economic Complexity Observatory.
Adule Benon represents the new wave of tobacco producers, having started in 2023. To heal his harvest, he sometimes collects wood from the forest, although he buys the ropes of the community.
Over the years, tobacco has become more profitable than corn for farmers, says Adule.
Like many inhabitants, adulates regularly in the forest for household water and firewood while forest animals, in particular chimpanzees, make reciprocal visits to human colonies. “Sometimes I see them in the forest. Sometimes they come to feed on the mangoes found on the trees in my family property, ”he says.
A 2015 study revealed that major changes in the use of land in the forest reserves of Budongo and Bugoma changed the relationship between local communities and chimpanzees, from coexistence to conflicts. While the trees disappear from the forests, the meetings between people and chimpanzees have increased.
“This relationship is marked by conflicts, especially when chimpanzees and baboons venture beyond the limits of the forests to compete with children for mangoes, bananas and the Jacquier,” explains Ogola. “We document around 10 attacks per year, chimpanzees targeting children under 10 years of age.”