Ankasa-Tano Community Transboundary Rainforest Project
Project Background
The Roloway monkey (Cercopithecus roloway) (pictured right) is one of the World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates and is on the knife-edge of extinction. Roloway monkeys have been systematically exterminated from all former habitats across their entire range with the exception of two community-owned rainforests in eastern Côte d’Ivoire and Western Ghana respectively.
The Kwabre Rainforest is a 2,550 hectare corridor of community-owned virgin rainforest which lies along the Tanoé River, directly opposite to the Tanoé Forest in Côte d’Ivoire. Until very recently, primatologists believed that the Tanoé Forest housed the world’s only remaining populations of Roloway monkeys. However, surveys conducted by WAPCA in 2011 and 2012 have revealed the presence
of additional Roloway monkey populations in the adjoining community-owned Kwabre Rainforest in Ghana’s Western Region. This is the first sighting of Roloway monkeys in Ghana since 2003, despite extensive surveys conducted in protected/unprotected areas throughout their former range in Ghana.
The Kwabre Rainforest surveys also identified significant populations of other endangered primates including white-naped mangabeys (Cercocebus lunulatus), Geoffrey’s black & white colobus (Colobus vellerosus) and olive colobus (Procolobus verus), as well the more common Lowe’s monkeys (Cercopithecus lowei) and Eastern lesser spot-nosed monkeys (Cercopithecus petaurista).
WAPCA’s Transborder Community-managed Rainforest Project has four main aims:
1) Protect and enhance 2,500 hectares of community-owned virgin rainforest through the transformation of the Kwabre Rainforest into a federated Community Resource Management Area (CREMA);
2) Reduce illegal activities in the rainforest through the training and implementation of community patrols;
3) Improve the health of the rainforest through the reforestation of areas degraded by illegal lumbering and mining;
4) Create sustainable community-managed agro-forestry plantations to reduce harvesting of forest products and clear-cutting of virgin forests for large scale export commodities
5) Develop sustainable livelihoods and promote green value chains in organic cocoa and organic coconut oil
6) Lay the foundation for a Transborder Community-managed Forest Reserve between the Kwabre Rainforest in Ghana and the Tanoé Community Forests in Côte d’Ivoire.
Click below for more details:
Community Resource Management Area
Community Rainforest Monitoring Patrols
Reforestation
Sustainable Livelihoods & GVC
Transborder Forest
