Ronan Donovan Instagram – In the coming days, I will be sharing images and stories from an article David Quammen (@davidquammen) and I worked on that’s printed in the current August issue of National Geographic Magazine (@natgeo) ⁣⁣ ⁣ At its core, this story is about deforestation. @natgeo, Quammen and I chose to highlight this flash point between humans and wild chimpanzees in Uganda as a way to have a different conversation about the global challenge of deforestation. ⁣ ⁣ What does deforestation in Uganda look like? This series of images shows the scale of deforestation across western Uganda. At current rates of deforestation, ~2-3% per year, Uganda will lose the remaining native forest cover outside if heavily protected areas in 30 years – according to a 2010 paper titled: Status of forests in Uganda. ⁣Much of the deforestation isn’t through large scale industrial logging that we in the Northern Hemisphere are used to seeing. These forests are disappearing by millions of tiny cuts that add up over years and decades. ⁣ Learn more and consider a donation (link in my bio) to the NGO @bulindichimps and learn more in the @natgeo magazine issue, on shelves now. ⁣ ⁣ The collision between humans and wild things is nothing new, after all, we came from the same wild lands. What is new is our mental detachment from those wild lands paired with our capacity to fulfill our insatiable appetite for resources. Now, when a modern human meets the gaze of a wild animal they are too disconnected to see how their futures are intertwined. The health of the land will forever dictate the health of humanity. ⁣ .⁣⁣ .⁣⁣ .⁣⁣ .⁣⁣ .⁣⁣ #chimpanzee #chimp #chimpanzees #chimps #ape #wildlife #conservation #animals #africa #uganda #wildlifephotography #nature #natgeo⁣⁣