Today there are very few natural areas where you can still see the primate closest to humans. Mahale Mountains National Park and the nearby Gombe Stream National Park are home to some of Africa’s last remaining chimpanzees. In the luxuriant and partly unexplored forests of these two parks, close to the shores of the immense Lake Tanganyika, there are eco-lodges that allow just a few guests to explore this incredible equatorial forest and its fauna.

The world-famous and widely respected primatologist Jane Goodall has spent her life pioneering the study and defence of Tanzania’s chimps. She also founded the Jane Goodall Institute to support field studies, conservation projects for this species and its habitat, and environmental and intercultural education projects. At the Gombe Stream Research Centre in particular, the studies headed by Goodall continue to offer new knowledge about the ecology and behaviour of these primates.