Ape Fund Project update

Ape Fund Project update
Project name: Ecological Monitoring and Counter-Poaching to Protect Great Apes
Date: September 30, 2014
Contact: Jef Dupain - [email protected]
1. What project-related developments, either directly or indirectly, took place the past
months?
The goal of this project is to build the capacity of the
Dja Conservation Service (Service de Conservation de
la Reserve de Biosphere de Dja) to safeguard
chimpanzee and gorilla from the many forms of illegal
human encroachment currently occurring within
southern Cameroon’s Dja Biosphere Reserve. The Dja
Biosphere Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage site
that is home to central chimpanzee and western
lowland gorilla, among many other species, but over
time the reserve has been overrun by poachers
hunting wildlife to sell as bushmeat in local markets.
The specific objectives of this project were to 1) locate
and map trails used by poachers inside the reserve; 2)
identify, geo-reference, and photograph signs of the
presence of gorilla, chimpanzee, and forest elephant
(nests, droppings, vocalizations, and direct
Dja Conservation Service rangers carrying observations); and 3) identify, geo-reference, and
confiscated smoked bushmeat out of the destroy/confiscate all evidence of human presence
reserve.
(hunting camps, poaching snares, weapons), and arrest
all poachers encountered within the reserve. Activities were concentrated on a 2,000km2 pilot
area of the larger 5,260km2 reserve in order to first secure and try out the methodology in a
core area, which can be expanded over time to eventually encompass the entire reserve.
Early in the project AWF and the Zoological Society of London led a joint training for 33 reserve
rangers on a wildlife and human activity monitoring and data collection protocol using
CyberTracker software loaded on rugged handheld computers. The Zoological Society of
London has been using a similar methodology in the logging concessions surrounding the
reserve, so teaching the Dja Conservation Service rangers to implement this protocol has
resulted in having a uniform system across the wider Dja Conservation Complex. This will
allow for easy comparison of data and better enable conservation stakeholders to conduct
landscape level conservation planning. AWF supplemented this CyberTracker training with
support for purchasing needed field equipment for the rangers such as uniforms, boots,
raincoats, and the handheld computers to use with CyberTracker software. AWF also provided
salary support to the rangers to enable them to undertake regular counter-poaching and
ecological monitoring patrols throughout the reserve.
Since the last project report AWF has continued to
support the Dja Conservation Service’s efforts to
further control bushmeat hunting and the
implementation of a protocol for wildlife and human
activity monitoring that can form the basis for an
evidence-based conservation program. The Dja
Conservation Service has been sending AWF monthly
field reports from their patrols that document georeferenced sightings of wildlife and human activity.
After collating this data, it is clear that wildlife
numbers are lower than AWF initially anticipated; a
sign that poaching has greatly surpassed the level of
sustainability. Underscoring this point, over the
course of the past year the rangers discovered and
subsequently destroyed over 200 hunting camps,
confiscated 31 guns, dismantled 64 lines of traps,
collected 400 snares, and counted 683 used gun
cartridges. They also encountered 53 people in the Dja Conservation Service rangers with forest
elephant tusks and smoked bushmeat
reserve and arrested 35 poachers. When they
confiscated from poachers in the reserve.
encountered poachers the rangers would confiscate
all their bushmeat, which often included pangolin,
small antelope, many species of monkey, and in one instance a young gorilla.
It should be noted that the rangers
initially only patrolled a 2,000km2 pilot
area of the larger 5,260km2 reserve, so
the overall poaching impact on the
reserve is likely considerably higher
than what the rangers observed within
the pilot area. Later in the project AWF
was able to leverage the support of the
EAZA Ape Campaign to secure matching
funding that allowed for a number of
patrol missions in other parts of the Dja
Biosphere
Reserve (see maps next
Rangers from the Dja Biosphere Reserve with guns
page). These patrols confirmed the
confiscated from poachers in the reserve.
urgent need to expand counterpoaching activity throughout the Dja Biosphere Reserve.
Above: Rangers in the Dja Biosphere Reserve have largely concentrated their patrol efforts in the easternmost
section of the reserve, but are beginning to expand their patrol coverage into other areas.
Above: A sample map showing the kinds of wildlife observations being recorded by rangers.
2. What activities are planned/ scheduled for the next three months?
Over the coming year AWF and the Zoological Society of London will continue to build the
capacity of the Dja Conservation Service rangers to manage and monitor the reserve. We have
recently started to look into the possibility of uploading CyberTracker data to the Spatial
Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) for analysis. SMART is an evolving software
developed for protected area management and law enforcement by a global consortium of
conservation organizations that should allow for easy data analysis, reporting and decision
making by the Dja Conservation Service on the ground. At the time of writing, AWF is working
on integrating SMART software with CyberTracker to streamline data management. This will
simplify patrol performance monitoring and reporting to promote transparency and
accountability for evaluating law enforcement performance and will allow for well-informed
ad hoc decision taking by the actors on the ground. As the project has been in effect for more
than a year, it will soon be possible to use SMART to assess data that the rangers have
collected to gain a more comprehensive picture of the spatial and temporal threats in the
landscape, and use this data to develop a robust, evidence-based conservation strategy.
In addition to training on SMART, we aim to augment the ranger patrolling within the reserve
by addressing other links in the wildlife trafficking chain outside the reserve. To this end, we
will develop and implement a system to support judicial processes that ensure that all
arrested poachers (and other individuals involved in illegal wildlife trade) are prosecuted to
the full extent of the law. In combination, this strategy of counter-poaching and a strong legal
system of prosecution/sentencing can ultimately help to control bushmeat hunting, and
combat the more pernicious organized crime networks involved in abducting young great
apes for the live pet trade.
3. Other information to share with the public related to the project.
In April 2014, and through a separate grant, some
representatives from the Dja Biosphere Reserve
(including the Dja Conservation Service conservator
and chief researcher, as well as the Zoological Society
of London’s Cameroon country manager and research
coordinator) joined AWF in Kinshasa, Democratic
Republic of Congo for AWF’s African Apes Initiative
Stakeholder Collaboration Workshop. This workshop
brought together AWF’s conservation partners from
five different great ape landscapes to allow for crosssite learning and information exchange, engage in
candid discussion of existing partnership frameworks
as a means of strengthening those collaborations, and
discuss lessons learned in using CyberTracker as a tool
for data collection and evidence-based conservation.
Participants from AWF’s African Apes
During this workshop participants from Cameroon
Initiative workshop (including the
collaboratively
developed
a
time
sensitive Zoological Society of London) travel to the
conservation action plan with deliverables to be
Lomako Reserve.
implemented over the coming year. This plan will be the basis for collaborative activities
which will help to address some of the key threats currently facing the Dja Biosphere Reserve.
Following the workshop, participants did a field visit to a longstanding AWF project site in the
Democratic Republic of Congo’s Lomako Yokokala Biosphere Reserve, where they had the
opportunity to see AWF’s wildlife and human activity monitoring protocol at a more advanced
stage of implementation. When AWF first started working in Lomako it was facing the same
uncontrolled bushmeat hunting currently occurring in Dja, but over time AWF was able to
build the capacity of the rangers to effectively control it through better monitoring and
counter-poaching tactics. Today wildlife numbers are steadily growing in Lomako, and we are
confident that in time this can also happen in the Dja Biosphere Reserve.
AWF is currently in the process of planning the next April 2015 African Apes Initiative
Stakeholder Collaboration Workshop, which we anticipate will be held in Cameroon and
include a field visit to the Dja Biosphere Reserve. Due to the generous support of the EAZA
Ape Campaign and other donor partners, the Dja Biosphere Reserve has become a very
promising model for how counter-poaching effectiveness can be improved through evidencebased conservation using CyberTracker, and we hope to showcase this successful model at
the next workshop. This will allow representatives from other great ape landscapes to learn
from the Dja Conservation Service rangers, and also offer advice from their experiences using
these same tools to address similar conservation challenges in their respective sites.
The Dja Biosphere Reserve has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987, but
in recent years the World Heritage Committee has considered adding it to the list of World
Heritage Sites in Danger due to increased pressure from commercial bushmeat hunting,
mining, logging, a proposed dam, and encroaching agriculture. UNESCO has recommended
three urgent actions to ensure the Dja Biosphere Reserve retains its World Heritage Site
status, and this project worked to advance one of those actions by establishing a rigorous
counter-poaching and ecological monitoring program to address commercial bushmeat
hunting. UNESCO noted AWF’s project in their 2014 State of Conservation Report on the Dja
Biosphere Reserve as a positive recent development, and we believe this project played a role
in influencing their decision not to add Dja to the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger. While
this issue will be revisited in 2015, we are hopeful that with additional progress we can once
again stay the de-listing.
The UNESCO Central Africa World Heritage Forest Initiative has also recently awarded AWF
and the Zoological Society of London joint funding to build upon our efforts in the Dja
Biosphere Reserve and larger Dja Conservation Complex. While this will advance our efforts,
more resources are needed to help the Dja Conservation Service expand their counterpoaching work beyond the pilot site and into the entire reserve. To that end, we are hopeful
that the EAZA Ape Campaign will consider providing renewed funding for this project in 2015.
On behalf of the staff and Trustees of the African Wildlife Foundation and especially our field
team in Africa and partners on the ground in Dja Biosphere Reserve, thank you for supporting
this important conservation initiative to safeguard Cameroon’s imperiled great apes.

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