Gombe

Gombe is one of the smallest of Tanzania's national parks, and one of the most famous. It is a narrow strip of the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, north of Kigoma, running from the beach up steep valleys to the ridge of the rift escarpment. TANAPA gives its area as 56 km². That is 35.7 km² of land and, since 2015, 20.7 km² of the lake. The forest in the valleys is thick and evergreen, with grassland and woodland on the ridges above.

It was declared a game reserve in 1943, and made a national park in 1968. By then Jane Goodall's research had made it famous around the world.

Streams run down every valley to the lake. The Kakombe and Mkenke streams fall over rock into pools in the forest, and TANAPA says the park has more than 45 km of trails.

Jane Goodall arrived at Gombe on 14 July 1960, aged 26, with no degree. She had been sent by the palaeontologist Louis Leakey, who thought wild apes might show how early humans behaved. The chief warden would only let her stay if someone came with her, so her mother came too.

In November 1960 she watched a chimpanzee she had named David Greybeard poke grass stems into a termite mound and pull them out covered in termites. She later saw chimpanzees strip the leaves off twigs to make them work better, which is making a tool. At the time, toolmaking was held to be what set humans apart. Leakey wrote back: "Now we must redefine 'tool', redefine 'man', or accept chimpanzees as humans." She also saw chimpanzees hunt and eat meat, when they had been thought to be vegetarian.

She gave the chimpanzees names instead of numbers, and described their personalities, their hugs and kisses, and bonds between mothers and offspring that lasted a lifetime. She also saw their darker side. In the early 1970s the Kasekela community split. From 1974, over about four years, its males killed the males of the breakaway Kahama group one by one. It was the first time male chimpanzees had been seen deliberately trying to kill another male. The conflict became known as the "Four-Year War".

At first Goodall attracted the chimpanzees with bananas at a feeding station. She later said she would not do it now, because at the time nobody knew chimpanzees could catch human diseases. The Gombe Stream Research Centre was set up in 1967, and the Jane Goodall Institute in 1977. The institute still funds the study, and its Tanzanian field staff collect data the same way it was collected in the early 1970s. It is one of the longest continuous studies of any wild animal. Jane Goodall died on 1 October 2025, aged 91.

There are three communities in the park. Kasekela, in the middle, is the one Goodall studied, and has had between 39 and 62 members over more than fifty years. Mitumba, in the north, has been habituated since 1996 and numbers about 25. Kalande, in the south, has collapsed: at least 19 chimpanzees in 2002, and only 5 by 2020.

In all, the park held 89 to 92 chimpanzees between 2002 and 2020, down from an estimated 120 to 150 in the 1960s. Two things are to blame. The first is disease. A study of 47 years of records found that illness caused more than half the deaths whose cause was known, mostly respiratory disease in epidemics. Gombe's chimpanzees also carry SIVcpz, the ape virus from which HIV-1 came. A 2009 study in Nature showed that it causes an AIDS-like illness in chimpanzees, with a death risk 10 to 16 times higher for infected animals.

The second is isolation. Outside the park, the forest has been cleared for farms. The rate of clearing in land important to chimpanzees doubled, from 87.5 hectares a year in 1972–1991 to 171 hectares a year in 1991–2003. The Jane Goodall Institute's TACARE programme, begun in 1994, worked with villages on tree-planting and health. From 2005, 13 villages set aside a quarter of their land, about 97 km² by 2009, as village forest reserves. That is 2.7 times the land area of the park, and chimpanzees still use it.

The viewing rules are the same as at Mahale: keep at least 10 metres away, wear a mask within 50 metres, do not eat or drink near the chimpanzees, stay away if you are ill, no visitors under 12, no more than six visitors and a guide at a time, and one hour at most.

Chimpanzee tracking. You walk with a guide from the shore up into the valleys to find the habituated chimpanzees, which can mean a steep, humid climb. TANAPA recommends staying two nights to see them properly, though a day trip from Kigoma is possible.

Other animals. TANAPA counts eight primate species: chimpanzees, olive baboons, red colobus, red-tailed, blue and vervet monkeys, and bushbabies. Red-tailed and blue monkeys interbreed here. The baboons are often on the beach. TANAPA lists 35 mammal species, including bushbuck, bushpig, duiker, civets and the chequered elephant-shrew. Its brochure gives two different bird counts, 287 species on one page and "over 200" on another; it names the fish eagle, palm-nut vulture, paradise flycatcher, Schalow's turaco and Peters's twinspot. Migrant birds are present from November to April.

The lake and the falls. You can swim, snorkel, kayak and fish in Lake Tanganyika, the longest freshwater lake in the world. You can walk to the Kakombe waterfall, and the trails climb to the ridge above the lake.

Outside the park. TANAPA suggests a visit to the Mwamgongo women's group, just outside the park, for crafts and traditional dance. Most people also visit Kigoma and Ujiji, where Stanley found Livingstone in 1871.

Getting there. There is no road to Gombe. You go by boat from Kigoma, two to three hours by local water taxi or by chartered boat, according to TANAPA. Kigoma has scheduled flights from Dar es Salaam.

Fees. Gombe is the most expensive national park in Tanzania: USD 100 per non-East African adult per day, all year, USD 20 for children aged 5 to 15 and TZS 10,000 for East African citizens, all before 18 per cent VAT, so USD 118 in practice. Staying in a camp or lodge inside the park adds USD 30 per night. Boat trips are USD 20, snorkelling USD 10, sport fishing USD 25 a day, and a park guide USD 20 per group per day.

Staying. TANAPA's tariff lists its own options inside the park. The Kasekela tented camp costs USD 50 per person sharing, or USD 60 for a suite. The Jane Goodall Memorial House costs USD 35, and the rest house USD 20. There is also a hostel for organised groups, public campsites at USD 30 per person, and a special campsite at Kasekela at USD 50. There are other rest houses at Mitumba and at the visitor centre.

When to go. There are two rainy seasons: short rains in November and December, and long rains from March to May. TANAPA gives the dry seasons as late June to October and January to early March. TANAPA gives temperatures of 18–26 °C.