Trip to Nigeria
From 13 January to 17 February I visited Nigeria. Up to 1983, gorillas
were believed to be extinct in Nigeria; in that year the Cross River gorilla
was rediscovered, although it is still critically endangered. This is
both the northernmost as the westernmost occurrence of gorillas.
The Cross River gorilla was first described in 1904 by Paul Matschie of
the Humboldt University Zoological Museum in Berlin, who classified them
as a new species, based on the characteristics of a short skull, short
molar row, palate shape, and skull base shape. Decades of disagreement
followed until the 1990s when Esteban Sarmiento and John Oates definitively
confirmed it as an valid subspecies, Gorilla gorilla diehli. There
are less than 300 individuals left, making it the most threatened gorilla
subspecies. Only one single animal is in captivity at the moment, a confiscated
gorilla living at the Limbe Rescue Centre in Cameroon together with rescued
western lowland gorillas.
I visited above all the projects supported by Berggorilla & Regenwald
Direkthilfe. In Calabar, I met Andrew Dunn, with whom I had exchanged
many emails in the past; he had already put together a full program. I
also met Chris Agbor, the Permanent Secretary of Forest Commission for
the Cross River State, and we discussed the protection and possible further
development of the park. I learned that both the Afi and Mbe Mountains
are now very well protected thanks to the reliable work of rangers and
scientists, whose continuing presence prevents poaching in both areas.
Our first destination was the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary. In May
2000, part of the existing Afi River Forest Reserve was established as
a wildlife sanctuary, mainly to protect the Cross River gorilla. The Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS), for which Andrew Dunn works, has been
active in that area since 1986. The sanctuary covers 32 km² (lying
within the forest reserve of 380 km²), approximately 1,300 m above
sea level.
Reaching Afi is not easy: it is an impenetrable area with steep slopes,
which has surely helped the survival of about 30 gorillas there, but makes
working there rather difficult. The area is characterized by a long dry
season, during which the animals find fewer fruits and roam the forest
on a north-south axis. Every 3 months WCS facilitates a sweep census when
biologists and rangers distributed at different camps survey the whole
area and record all nests and faeces they encounter. I was lucky to be
at Afi during such a census, and met among others WCS research officer,
Inaoyom Imong and the Conservation Coordinator of the Afi Mountain Wildlife
Sanctuary, Ubi Sam. Usually biology students from the nearby University
of Calabar join those censuses which gives them a good opportunity to
gain field experience. They all participated with great enthusiasm and
interest.
Another very important area is Mbe, since it represents a corridor between
Afi and the Okwangwo Division of the Cross River National Park (CRNP).
Without official protection status it is up to the WCS eco-guards to patrol
this forest and thanks to their work there has not been any gorilla poaching
in the past 5 years. The management of this area is carried out by the
surrounding villages. Currently the demarcation of borders for a core
protected area is under way. SPACE (Sustainable Practices in Agriculture
for Critical Environments) is doing a considerable amount of education
in those villages. Since 1990 there has been a proposal to integrate Mbe
into the national park, but so far no action has been taken to implement
this. Population increase and thus pressure on the forest are the main
problems at Mbe.
Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe financed the renovation
of ranger posts at Mbe and Afi. The building materials needed to be carried
up the mountains one by one, and when I saw those steep slopes I began
to understand why this has taken quite some time; but as all the materials
have now arrived at the site it will not take long to complete the job.
The Afi ranger post has been completed in the meantime (see photo below).
Photo: Ubi Sam
The Cross River National Park is a so-called biodiversity hotspot, meaning
that it is an area with many species, including many endemics; it is extremely
endangered because of poaching, clearing, road construction and population
pressure. The park consists of two parts: the Oban Division in the south
(approximately 3,000 km²), which is connected with the Korup National
Park in Cameroon, and in the north the Okwangwo Division (approximately
640 km²), connected to the Takamanda Forest Reserve in Cameroon.
The two parts are separated by 63 km, and taken together they contain
80% of all wild primate species in Nigeria. In 1991, the area was recognized
as national park.
Alhaji Abdulsalam, the director of CRNP, arranged for the rangers at Anape
to show us the area around their region. Kolmården Zoo has funded
the construction of a ranger post at Anape which I was interested in visiting.
There are still numerous villages in the forest which makes effective
protection enormously difficult. It is therefore important to continue
supporting education and protection efforts throughout CRNP.
Anape is near Obudu, which is outside of the national park. In 1959 a
first class hotel was established here, which has now been further extended
by luxury lodges. Fulani living in that area still burn the vegetation
from time to time to provide grass for their cattle. Fortunately it is
also in the interest of the hotel operators to preserve natural habitat
around the Obudu Plateau, as the surrounding forests are a tourist destination.
As the area is huge with many hills and valleys, only a fraction can be
controlled from Anape and there are plans to establish another ranger
post in Bumaji. This would also give locals an alternative way of living
and therefore help to reduce exploitation of natural resources; they could
find jobs as rangers and work on the construction of the ranger station.
Last year Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe donated tents,
backpacks and sweaters for the rangers. In February a new Director of
CRNP was appointed; in Nigeria Park Directors are regularly rotated. Andrew
Dunn will discuss further conservation efforts with the new man in charge,
Steven Haruna. It is essential to continue to work for protection of the
remaining areas and the animals living there; Berggorilla & Regenwald
Direkthilfe has pledged to support further conservation efforts in
Cross River National Park in 2006.
Denise Nierentz
Denise Nierentz worked for one year at the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre (EPRC) in Cuc Phuong National Park in Vietnam, and is now a zoo animal keeper (for gorillas, among others). She has also visited gorillas in several African countries.