By Serge K. Soiret, GAP correspondent in West Africa, from Ivory Coast

Gnonsio Denis, 79 years old, is Guéré, an ethnic group located in the West of Ivory Coast. He left his village in 1966 to settle in the forest region, specifically at Southwest of the Taï Park – in “Djouroutou”, to continue his activity of poaching. Great hunter of the region, he used to hunt elephants for the sale of ivory. In 1986 he took the decision to stop poaching and to engage in awareness of the youth generations for the protection of animals and their habitats. 

According to him, the Ivorian forest and animal species are lively disappearing compared to the 1980s, when you could hear chimpanzees shouting and making drums in the forest near the village. After twenty years of poaching, Gnonsio made us a revelation: "the poacher has never got a happy life, he is always unfortunate."

Gnonsio’s family is in alliance with chimpanzees “Gouê”(chimpanzee in the local language), according to what his father had told him. Whenever he heard chimpanzees crying out in the forest, it meant that an event would happen in the family. In his family chimpanzees are regarded as their relatives because they anticipate events in the family. Therefore, they do not kill or eat the chimpanzees. Gnonsio preserves at home chimpanzees’ statues for whom he prays to during difficult periods of his life. 

According to Gnonsio, chimpanzees were men who lived together with us. Separation would have happened the day when they refused to be circumcised. Then they retreated into the forest, where they have decided to live forever. Leading a wild life, they faced some transformations to become animals but always kept human behavior, as huntingsmall apes, breaking nuts and use of sophisticated tools. 

Gnonsio describes to us a scene that took place before him one day during his hunting parties. He attended chimpanzees doing the funeral of one of them: chimpanzees all around the death were shouting and breaking branches for filing on the corpse until the body was completely covered. After that they went away. Astounded, he continued his way with a clear idea about chimpanzees: that they are truly human.