Mbunya Francis Nkemnyi October 10, 2014 Comments
Enabling sustainability in the Tofala Hill Wildlife Sanctuary Cross River gorilla project, South West Cameroon
The Cross River gorilla (CRG) is listed as critically endangered and has a population of <300 individuals living in the wild over distributed over 15 hilly enclaves along the Nigeria-Cameroon Border. The proposed Tofala Hill Wildlife Sanctuary (THWS), where this project will be conducted is home to a sub population of both the CRG. It is also home to the Nigerian-Cameroon chimpanzee, listed as endangered and is considered the most threatened of all chimpanzee species, numbering as few as 3500 animals. Aside these two great apes species, the landscape is also home to over 24 other mammals, which are also threatened due to human disturbance in this habitat. Livelihood in the THWS rely heavily on the forest habitat, and this threaten the survival of all wildlife species in this landscape with particularly a more larger effect on SLOW
producing mammal such as the gorilla and chimpanzees.
The main challenges to conservation efforts in the study area include the negative perceptions of local people toward conservation objectives, inadequate strategies in TARGETING livelihood support and poor management of conservation conflict. In addition, farming and hunting remains the most visible threats to conservation.
This project seeks to assess how sustainability can be attend in the cross river gorilla conservation project in the THWS by assessing the influence of livelihood support to gorilla conservation. This entails evaluating why support is failing to yield conservation success and what alternatives will yield better results; assessing in what ways cultural, and traditional practices can best accommodate and give a boost to conservation values and strategies and evaluating the current conservation using the logical framework approach. These assessments and evaluations will help us to develop an integrated strategy that will assist in the implementation of the THWS Cross River gorilla project.
