After spending nearly the entire month of April in the West African country of Ghana, Dr. Robert Horwich, Director of Community Conservation, Inc., has returned home to rural Gays Mills with a new stamp on his passport. Dr. Horwich was asked to visit the country on the western coast of Africa by associate Mark Fenn as part of a larger Hεn Mpoana (“our coast”) initiative led by the Coastal Resources Center – University of Rhode Island. Specifically, Fenn asked Horwich to bring his experience in catalyzing community-based conservation to the reserve forests of Cape Three Points, one of the last coastal forests on the coast of West Africa. These forests, and the endangered species that inhabit them, are currently unprotected from the historically devastating effects of logging and illegal hunting.

The Bush Meat Market Problem
While in Ghana, Dr. Horwich studied specifically two small pockets of remaining forest and the small and depleting populations of three endemic species of monkey, including the endangered olive colobus and the Geoffroy’s black & white colobus. One of these forest pockets, known locally as Monkey Hill, amounts to a mere 31 hectares and is located right in middle of the city of Takoradi. “It’s unusual to find good forests like this in the middle of a city,” commented Dr. Horwich, “The [bush meat] challenge is a more extreme problem here because there are not many forests left.” Not far from Cape Three Points, researchers from West African Primate Conservation Action (WAPCA) were completing a census of wildlife in a wetland forest bordering Côte D’Ivoire. It was still unclear what species remain in this area, but villagers have reported sightings of the Mrs. Waldron’s red colobus, a species thought to be extinct as of 2000 and last officially sighted in 1978. Dr. Horwich and WAPCA researchers visited with local chiefs in this area to gain permission to go further into the wetlands for further census research in hopes of finding new populations and opening the door of possibility. The problem of bush meat hunting and the depletion of local monkey populations have led some primatologists to go so far as to call the forests of Ghana the “silent forests” due to the fact that monkeys in these areas have become so few in numbers and shy in behavior.

Potential for Conservation
Accompanied by local men, Dr. Horwich traveled between villages in the Cape Three Points region, speaking with local communities about the remaining forests, the animals known to inhabit them and the challenges to conserving these areas. Villagers indicated that they were interested in conserving the forests and the local wildlife, but were not receiving positive feedback from their governments and were becoming discouraged. These initial discussions led to a regional meeting of villages surrounding Cape Three Points. At this meeting, Dr. Horwich presented model projects from Belize and Assam, India that were similarly catalyzed by communities themselves. The meeting went on to discuss the potential for local jobs forming out of forest protection and alternative livelihoods such as tourism, soapmaking, beekeeping, a village restaurant, and farming other sources of meat such as the cane rat, a local giant snail, or chickens to deal specifically with the bush meat problem.

Based on this initial positive feedback and desire of villagers to act, Dr. Horwich sees good potential for community-led conservation in these areas. “We’ve seen this kind of start to several other projects which have continued on with much success,” Horwich remarked while reflecting on other Community Conservation projects, “I anticipate returning to Ghana and I look forward to assisting these villages with their conservation goals.”