A new action plan for the conservation of West African chimpanzees is already increasing momentum, networking and donor commitments in the Guinean Forests of West Africa biodiversity hotspot.
The Regional Action Plan for the Conservation of Chimpanzees in West Africa confirms that chimpanzees in the West African region are in serious decline and details a strategy for protecting 80 percent of those surviving. It is the result of a meeting of 72 experts in Abidjan, Cóte d’Ivoire.
“This was the first time researchers, policymakers and donors all got together to talk about chimps in West Africa and what needs to be done,” says Rebecca Kormas, co-author of the report and a research fellow at the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International (CABS).
Since its publication in late 2003, the plan has become the springboard for funding in several projects, including a $226,780 investment by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, $184,000 from CEPF and initiatives by several zoos.
In March, the United States Agency for International Development Mission to Guinea and Sierra Leone issued an official Annual Program Statement calling for potential partners to submit proposals to carry out activities in support of its Chimpanzee Conservation and Sensitization Activity in the two countries. The program expects to award approved projects a total of $1 million. The action plan also helped inspire a recent commitment by Liberia to protect more than 62,000 hectares of forest, including the Sapo National Park and the Nimba Nature Reserve.
The plan, published with support from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and from CABS through a CEPF grant, comes at a crucial time. Wild chimpanzees are only found in tropical Africa, and in the last 30 years their numbers have plummeted form 600,000 individuals to fewer than 200,000. This is largely due to deforestation, poaching and capture for the pet trade and research purposes.
The two sub-species of chimpanzees found in West Africa—the Western chimpanzee and the Nigerian chimpanzee—are the most threatened. They have already disappeared from Benin, Togo and probably Burkina Faso, according to experts. Populations in Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Ghana are extremely threatened, numbering only in the hundreds.
One of the regional activities emphasized in the action plan is the need for surveys and monitoring of chimpanzee populations. The plan also suggests three other regional actions: the creation of chimpanzee sanctuaries, education and awareness, and review of legislation and enforcement.
“People have to be educated that not only is it illegal to kill chimpanzees, but that diseases such as Ebola can be transferred from humans to chimps via blood, so eating them is also a real health risk,” says Kormos, who is also vice-chair of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group and who edited and compiled the report together with Christopher Boesch, president of the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation.
Beginning in December 2003, CEPF’s new $184,000 investment is supporting a three-year project by the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation to conduct an awareness campaign among local communities while also building their capacity to take part in forest management.
Local populations of chimpanzees and humans both stand to benefit. While deforestation is a principal driver of chimpanzee declines in the hotspot, scientists have shown that it has far-reaching consequences for human populations as well. Deforestation in West Africa has led to decreased rainfall, causing a desertification process that, combined with recent growth in human populations in the region, could bring about resource shortages that could be catastrophic. The degradation of natural resources has also been linked to poverty and civil conflict in the region.