Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire join efforts • To preserve wildlife

Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are to link identified forest reserves in the two countries through a project aimed at establishing a conservation area for wildlife.
The project, which was launched in Accra yesterday, is to link forest reserves and protected areas in and around Bia in the Western Region of Ghana and Diambarakro in Cote d’Ivoire.
Project
Initiated by the Conservation Alliance, an environmental NGO, the project, whose initiation is a collaboration between the NGO and its partners, would ensure that there are passages for the animals in the forest reserves around the identified areas.
The three-year project, titled: “Development of a trans-frontier conservation area linking forest reserves and protected areas in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire,” is funded by the governments of the two countries, the FAO and other partners at an estimated cost of $2.1 million.
Other partners collaborating with Conservation Alliance include Ghana’s Forestry Commission, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and partners from Cote d’Ivoire.
Wildlife species especially elephants in the forest zone of West Africa are now found in small isolated fragments of forests, many of which will probably dwindle to extinction over time.
Need for collaboration
Launching the project, the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Ms Barbara Serwaa Asamoah, said the countries which shared boundaries, therefore, needed to collaborate in conservation activities geared towards the protection of wildlife animals.
According to her, the South-Eastern Cote d’Ivoire and South-Western Ghana contained significant populations of key species of large mammals and also supported more than 40 per cent of cocoa production.
Therefore, she said, the need for wildlife passages to facilitate species interaction and sustainable cocoa production was very important.
In her presentation, the Coordinator for Conservation Alliance, Mrs Ernestina Osei-Peprah, explained that the project aimed at facilitating the development and implementation of a single management framework for biodiversity conservation of the Bia-Diambarakro trans-frontier conversation area.
In addition, she said the project would develop, test and promote best practices in cocoa agroforestry for the rehabilitation of degraded forest landscape that would provide connectivity between the fragmented forest blocks and enhance ecosystem.
The FAO Deputy Regional Representative, Dr Lamourdia Thiombiano, in a speech read on his behalf, said human wildlife conflict issues were on the rise, therefore further attention was required to make for the adoption of long-lasting solutions.
“As human activities expand these animals will face an increasing risk of extinction as the process of habitat fragmentation accelerates and they become further isolated from each other,” he stated.