Abdullahi explained that President Muhammadu Buhari had sent a request to the Senate on November 16th, 2022, seeking the Senate’s agreement to the National Park declaration Order, 2022, in compliance with section 18 of the National Park Service Act 2004. The proposed order aimed to establish ten additional national parks based on thorough feasibility studies and environmental impact assessments in twelve selected forests and game reserves located in different states of the federation.

The list of proposed parks includes:

• Alawa National Park in Niger State,
• Apoi National Park in Bayelsa State,
• Edumenun National Park in Bayelsa State,
• Galgore National Park in Kano State,
• Hadejia Wetland National Park in Jigawa State,
• Kempe National Park in Kwara State,
• Kogo National Park in Katsina State,
• Marhi National Park in Nasarawa State,
• Oba Hill National Park in Osun State, and
• Pandam National Park in Plateau State.

According to Abdullahi, the establishment of these additional parks is crucial for the regulation of Nigeria’s unique ecosystem, particularly the fauna and flora ecosystems. “The establishment will address the fast rate of disappearance and degradation of Nigeria’s forest, achieve and develop adequate tourism infrastructure in line with international best practices,” he said. He also emphasized that the creation of these parks would help protect and preserve Nigeria’s biodiversity and natural heritage.

The approval of 10 new national parks in Nigeria is a significant development that will play a vital role in protecting the country’s unique ecosystem and natural heritage. With the fast rate of disappearance and degradation of Nigeria’s forests, these parks will serve as a vital tool in regulating the use of the country’s flora and fauna ecosystems.

The establishment of these parks will also provide an opportunity for the development of adequate tourism infrastructure in line with international best practices, potentially boosting the country’s tourism industry.

—
Photo: Francesco Ungaro

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Missing an important point?

Why should DRC have to pay the price for saving the planet on its own? One article, only one of many, made reference to how “the auction highlights a double standard that many political leaders across the African continent have called out: how can Western countries, which built their prosperity on fossil fuels that emit poisonous, planet-warming fumes, demand that Africa forgo their reserves of coal, oil and gas in order to protect everyone else?” And as rightly said by DRC’s representative on climate issues and advisor of the Minister of hydrocarbon, Tosi Mpanu Mpanu: “Maybe it’s time we get a level playing field and be compensated”.

Why is it so difficult for most mainstream media and environmental NGOs to discuss the co-responsibility of African national governments and Western countries. Of course we totally disapprove that countries, including DRC, are opening up their protected areas and pushing for fossil fuel exploitation and other destructive activities, with a flagrant disregard of national laws and violating the rights of nature and communities. However, these countries do have a point when they say that we can not work with double standards.

Double standards?

There are global outcries against the pushing for oil blocks in protected areas by national governments but we hear little about the fact that nearly none of the Western countries contributed to the Yasuni initiative. As a result, the Ecuadorian government allowed oil exploration in this critical habitat.

Also, why are there so many empty promises from western governments about climate commitments? This is not about prioritizing the needs of one country above another but it is about the failure of the world to take “the principle of co-responsibility in the battle against climate change.”

Quote from The Guardian: “This failure of the international community touches on the wider issue of justice in the battle against climate change. What level of responsibility should be taken by the developed nations that have most contributed to the problem of climate change and are most able to tackle it? And what is the responsibility of the less developed nations? Clearly, a just solution would see the more developed nations bare proportionally more of the responsibility?”

The global “debt” of Western countries by building their economies on fossil fuels, and at the continued expense of the Global South, is a critical point, but seems to be ignored by the international community.

Yasuni

In 2013 former Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK regretted to see how on Yasuní the world failed to show the will needed, and explained that we could not afford the world to fail on other proposals. This was a little less than ten years ago. One can only wonder how much we have learned from our mistakes and what is the international community going to do with Congo’s nature?

At the same time UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, warns of climate emergency and prompts for the creation of “climate coalitions, made up of developed countries, multilateral development banks, private financial institutions and corporations, supporting major emerging economies in making this shift.”

Maybe the awaited departure of the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, from the DRC could be a good start. An opportunity for the UN to show strong climate leadership, not only in words, but by reinvesting the current MONUSCO annual budget of $1 billion into something that the Congolese people really need and want. The UN could lead in the creation of a climate coalition for DRC and be the first pledging a $1 billion per year to protect DRC’s natural heritage in order to save the planet.

“The Monusco is one of the largest and most expensive UN missions in the world, Monusco has been in the DRC since 1999. It currently has more than 14,000 peacekeepers, with an annual budget of $1 billion.” 

Debt or investment?

While global debt could be a tool in specific situations, this option is still based on old thinking: that fossil fuels have a value and that developing countries have a right to exploit their resources. Times are changing. Through “progressive insights” we are now aware that carbon emissions from fossil fuels lead to global warming. Reality has changed.

We can not build future-proof societies based on old insights. Achieving sustainable, equitable development in a complex and dynamic world will require new ways of thinking and practice.

From a perspective of fairness, do African countries need to be compensated for leaving their focal fuels into the ground? Not directly, because that would sustain dependency, but indirectly: African countries could benefit from investments in sustainable (energy) sectors. In that way, Africa can skip a generation of old technologies, as well as old power structures, get a head start, develop and capitalise on new green technologies.

Instead of making fossil fuels the focus and compensation the means to achieve something, it would be more impactful to divert investments, and invest in green (energy) solutions in African countries and in carbon credits based on intact ecosystems. That will help countries right now by providing the means, while mobilising companies in economically better developed countries (and Asia etc) to reduce their emissions. That will spur real change at a global scale.

Co-responsibility

There is a responsibility to repay environmental debt by economically developed nations; as well as a responsibility for the DRC government to make sure that the kleptocratic system that has been benefiting from the looting of country resources is fully dismantled. The last thing Congo needs is more billions of dollars pouring in and out of the country without benefiting its nature and people.

Rather than only warning about global climate catastrophe, endangered species and disappearing rainforests, we need to provide alternative solutions that work, that are acceptable and equitable. If we really want to change and save the world it’s time we start changing our own perspectives and take our share of responsibility. Let’s mobilise organisations and resources for a DRC Climate Fund and invest in new green energy solutions that will place the country and its people at the steering wheel (not a backseat) of our drive to a carbon neutral future.

—
Authors: Save Virunga & African Conservation Foundation

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The study found that the breeding success of the hornbills collapsed over a decade-long monitoring period (2008 – 2019), corresponding with rapid warming due to climate change. During the monitoring period, sub-lethal effects of high temperatures, including compromised foraging, provisioning, and body mass maintenance, reduced the chance of hornbills breeding successfully or even breeding at all.

“These temperature effects occurred even in good rainfall years,” said Nicholas Pattinson, a researcher at UCT’s FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology.

“While drought did negatively affect breeding success, our findings suggested that the rapid warming in the region was responsible for the collapse in breeding success: temperatures have been rising but drought return rates have remained stable in this area.”

The hornbills have an incredible breeding strategy, whereby the female actually seals herself inside the nest and moults all of her flight feathers. This strategy helps them avoid predation, and while it is common to many hornbills, it is a truly remarkable method of breeding.

Writing in the Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution journal, Pattinson said the study supports the proposition that even in the absence of large-scale mortality events associated with heat waves, cumulative sub-lethal consequences of increasing temperatures can and will likely cause population declines and even local extinctions.

Pattinson and his colleagues were surprised by how rapid climate warming acted so quickly on the breeding success of the hornbills.

“Within just a single decade we see a collapse in breeding success, correlating to the warming in the region and related to the inability of the hornbills to breed successfully at high temperatures. The most surprising thing is the finding that the hornbills, as we were monitoring, were fighting extirpation,” he said.

Commenting on the findings, Pattinson said there is rapidly growing evidence for the negative effects of high temperatures on the behaviour, physiology, breeding and survival of various bird, mammal, and reptile species around the world.

“Heat-related mass die-off events over the period of a few days are increasingly being recorded, which no doubt pose a threat to population persistence and ecosystem function,” he said. A team of researchers monitored the breeding of a population of the hornbills breeding in nest boxes at a study site in the Kalahari Desert from 2008 to 2019. They analysed the breeding success at the scale of entire breeding seasons and individual breeding attempts within seasons and correlated those with weather variables. The team also analysed South African Weather Service data for the Kalahari region to look at long term temperature and rainfall patterns to determine the onset and rate of warming due to climate change.

Out of the 118 breeding attempts the team monitored over the decade period, not a single attempt succeeded where the average air temperature during the attempt was equal to or greater than 35.7 °C. According to Pattinson, this shows a clear, dramatic negative effect of high temperatures on the breeding success of the hornbills.

“Current climate change predictions make it very unlikely that hornbills will persist across the hottest parts of their range even over the next decade. However, if they are going to occur anywhere across their current distribution in the future, the temperatures will have to remain below this threshold of 35.7 °C during their breeding,” he said.

This study may be about the hornbills in the Kalahari Desert, but it is relevant to people and systems worldwide, said Pattinson.

“Much of the public perception of the effects of climate change is related to scenarios calculated for 2050 and beyond. This renders the concept of the effects of climate change abstract to much of the general public not directly affected by extreme weather events, given that the effects are considered to concern future generations,” he said.

—
Issued by: UCT Communication and Marketing Department
Photo: Marc/Unsplash

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Among its findings, the report found that wild meat is often a key use and a major driver for legal and illegal hunting, particularly of ungulates and primates, and especially during times of conflict or famine and in the course of land use change. This has led to drastic declines and extinctions of several migratory terrestrial mammal populations.

• 70% of hunted CMS terrestrial mammal species are used for wild meat consumption.
  67 of the 105 species studied were recorded as hunted. Of these 67 species, the largest intended use (47 species) was for wild meat consumption. Other hunting purposes identified were for cultural reasons, medicinal use, human-wildlife conflict, unintentional take and sport/trophy hunting/fashion.

• Taking for domestic use is a larger concern than international trade for most CMS terrestrial species
  Global attention to wildlife taking has largely focused on international trade. However, the report found that the vast majority of taking of CMS species for wild meat consumption is driven by direct use or domestic trade. This has major implications for international and national efforts to protect vulnerable and endangered species.
  Overall, 34 of 99 species with an IUCN Red List Assessment were reported as used at the subsistence level (direct use), 27 were traded nationally, and 22 were traded internationally, when all types of use were considered. However, when only meat for consumption was considered, 27 species (out of 99) were reported as consumed for subsistence, 10 species for national wild meat trade and only two species for international wild meat trade.

CMS Executive Secretary Amy Fraenkel noted, “This report indicates for the first time a clear and urgent need to focus on domestic use of protected migratory species of wild animals, across their range. We need to ensure that domestic laws and enforcement efforts are able to tackle this major threat to CMS species.”

The Taking of Animals for Wild Meat Consumption Significantly Increases the Risk of Future Zoonotic Diseases

The report also examined the link between the taking of species for wild meat with the risk of zoonotic diseases.

• There is strong evidence that zoonotic disease outbreaks are linked to human Wild meat taking and consumption has been identified as the direct and causative agent for the spill-over into humans for Monkeypox virus, SARS, Sudan Ebola virus and Zaire Ebola virus, with subsequent human-to-human transmission.
• In total, 60 zoonotic viral pathogens were reported as hosted by the 105 migratory species
• Encroachment into remaining intact habitats through infrastructure and economic activities have made vast new areas accessible for wild meat taking, thus increasing the zoonotic risk by bringing humans in contact with hitherto undisturbed host and pathogen

“As we seek to shift towards sustainable global food systems, it is critical that the use of wild species for food, is both legal and sustainable. The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that the overexploitation of nature comes at a heavy cost. We urgently need to depart from business- as- usual. In so doing, we can save many species from the brink of extinction and protect ourselves from future outbreaks of zoonotic diseases,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme.

The study cited a number of factors for the unsustainable taking. First, national legislation and regulations may lack clarity or are outdated, not reflecting the actual requirements of environmental factors, population traits and dynamics of the species concerned. Second, poor enforcement is a key driver of unsustainable use in several regions. Third, civil conflict and land use change can drive increased taking for wild meat. Fourth, migratory animals cross countries and regions with a wide variety of differing laws and enforcement approaches, increasing the risk of unsustainable take at different stages of their migration. Finally, growing urbanization and increased sale of wild meat as a luxury product is an additional pressure on protected animals.

The report also found that seasonal migration patterns mean migratory species are a particularly susceptible target for hunters, poachers and other consumers due to the well-known timing of the species’ arrival in a particular area.

It is important to note that wildlife contributes to the food security, health, income, jobs and cultural identity of many rural economies and for some of the world’s most vulnerable Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs). Any policy response needs to consider such uses, as well as the drivers of food insecurity.

Most Species in the Study Are Reported as being Threatened by Hunting.

Hunting (for all purposes) is reported as a key threat to the survival of many species. Excluding bats (Chiroptera), the study finds that 98% (41 out of 42) of the CMS species with an IUCN Red List Assessment are threatened by hunting. Hunting threatens 95% (21 out of 22) of those that are classified by IUCN as Endangered, Critically Endangered, or Extinct in the Wild.

The study documented linkages between hunting and the declining population trends of several species. 77% (40 out of 52) of the CMS species that were assessed by IUCN as having decreasing populations were recorded as threatened by hunting in this study. For instance, most migratory ungulates still extant in the wild have experienced significant population declines that can be attributed to hunting. All chimpanzee subspecies and three of the four gorilla subspecies reported as significantly threatened by hunting are also experiencing large population declines. Overall, the assessment of the report finds that taking has a direct impact on the populations of more than half (58 out of 105) of the studied species, with high impacts for at least 42% (40 out of 105) of them.

The study also found that there is insufficient data for a conclusive assessment on the taking of bats, which make up half of the CMS terrestrial mammal species studied. This could signal that they are either infrequently hunted, or that their hunting is being underreported.

Most Hunted Species Are Used for Wild Meat Consumption

Wild meat is often reported to be the key use of terrestrial migratory species and a significant motive behind both legal and illegal hunting. This is of particular relevance for migratory ungulates and primates that suffer most in the context of human-related disasters such as conflicts and famines, but also in the case of land use change. The report found that of all the CMS terrestrial mammal species that were recorded as hunted, 70% (47 out of 67) are used for wild meat consumption. Illegal hunting for meat is the primary threat to three Gorilla subspecies, Western Lowland Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), Grauer’s Gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) and the Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli).

Carnivore and elephant species are hunted for many different uses and disaggregating the impact of wild meat hunting from hunting for trophies or human-wildlife conflict is often not possible.

Demand for Wild Meat as a Luxury Item Expected to Increase with the Growth of Urbanization

While wild meat can be an important source of nutrition for rural communities, wild meat does not often play a significant role in food security for urban dwellers, for whom it is a luxury item. Yet as urban populations grow, so does the demand for wild meat. Even low per capita consumption rates can add up to large total quantities of wild meat consumed, and urban demand is fueling increasing unsustainable offtakes in surrounding areas, contributing to heavier pressure on wildlife and a larger threat to the food supply of wildlife-dependent rural communities.

Available data shows that, for instance, the straw-colored bat (Eidolon helvum) in west and central Africa, and the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) in Cameroon and Nigeria have been available in large numbers across urban markets. Better transportation, availability of firearms and high financial incentives are amongst the drivers of increased urban access to wild meat.

Protection of CMS Terrestrial Mammal Species is Inconsistent

Most CMS terrestrial mammal species are protected to varying degrees under current laws, with levels of protection fluctuating across species and countries. In many tropical countries, urgent reform of current hunting legislation is needed. This includes subsistence hunting practices that are often incompatible with hunting regulations.

From several case studies, two themes emerged: first, while CMS species may be protected under national and international laws, in many countries enforcement capacity and effort is low, and unregulated hunting therefore continues unabated. Secondly, species populations that experienced sharp declines due to over-hunting have recovered after legal protection and the enforcement of laws.

Recommendations and Implications for the Future:

• Greater attention to domestic use and trade of CMS species is needed to address threats to conservation;
• National hunting legislation and regulations should be reviewed and updated as needed;
• Capacity for monitoring and enforcement should be examined and strengthened;
• The drivers contributing to the illegal or unsustainable use of wildlife for domestic consumption should be further identified and addressed;
• Understanding more about the spillover risks associated with wild meat use and trade, and the factors that might increase or decrease these risks, must be an immediate priority for wild meat research;
• Comparable and collatable data on hunting offtakes and species abundance should be gathered on all the species studied to enable more complete assessments of impacts of hunting for wildlife consumption and trade; and
• Additional international cooperation will be needed to address wild meat taking of migratory species, whose ranges span multiple countries.

Link to the Report: https://www.cms.int/publication/wild-meat-report
Source: Press release Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals
Photo by Edmond Dounias/CIFOR

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The world’s most famous tropical forests found on lowlands, like those of the Amazon or Borneo, are celebrated for their ability to store carbon. The Amazon rainforest itself holds up to twenty years’ worth of fossil fuel carbon emissions in its trees and soil.

While tropical forests can also be found on tropical mountains such as Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, these have long been assumed to store much less carbon. On mountains, temperature decreases with increasing elevation, negatively affecting tree growth. Also, common mountain features such as thick fog, wind and steep slopes tend to constrain tree height.

If trees are smaller, and grow slower, then mountain forests should contain less carbon sequestered from the atmosphere through growth processes: a hypothesis which has been reflected in studies of tropical mountains in the Andes and southeast Asia.

But our research, recently published in Nature, shows that tropical mountain forests in Africa actually store as much carbon per hectare as those found in African lowlands – a finding specific to the continent.

This is because, although African tropical mountain forests have fewer trees (about 450 per hectare compared to 600 in other continents) than their lowland counterparts, they have a greater abundance of large trees (over 70 cm in diameter), whose increased mass means they hold on to more carbon.

We wondered if this unusual finding was thanks to elephant populations resident in many African tropical mountain regions, who eat and destroy smaller tree stems – creating room for others to grow larger – and also transport nutrients which are limited in mountain soils.

But we didn’t find significant differences in tree height between forests with and without elephants, although unfortunately our data only showed us if elephants were present in a given area and not how many were around. Other explanations could include the low frequency of tropical cyclones or active volcanoes in Africa, making it less likely for trees to be destroyed before they grow tall.

Carbon storage

A group of 101 researchers working at different institutions across Africa, Europe, North America, Asia and New Zealand measured 72,336 trees with trunks of over 10cm diameter on 44 mountains in 12 countries within the African continent. For each tree we recorded trunk diameter, species and height.

We used an equation to estimate the carbon stored in these forests, since actually cutting, drying and weighing trees – technically the most accurate method for analysing carbon capture – would rather undermine our aim to mitigate climate change.

We then calculated how much tropical mountain forest had been lost in the African continent over the past 20 years, using data from satellites. We estimated that 0.8 million hectares had been lost, mostly in DRC, Uganda and Ethiopia.

Unexpectedly, given the steep terrains which make logging operations or large-scale farming challenging, we found that in many African countries deforestation rates were higher in the mountains than the lowlands.

So if these mountain forests store more carbon than expected, we are releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than previously assumed. In fact, the 0.8 million hectares of mountain forest destroyed since 2001 has emitted more than 450 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the planet’s atmosphere, accelerating global warming.

Biodiversity loss

African tropical mountain forests are not only carbon-rich: they are also rich in biodiversity. Among their huge trees live elephants, mountain gorillas, chimpanzees, and numerous species of birds, amphibians and snakes found nowhere else in the world. Continued deforestation will push many of these creatures further towards extinction.

These forests also act as “water towers” (like giant water tanks), irrigating agricultural land and supplying numerous vital river systems including the Congo and the Nile. This makes them crucial for local and regional crop growth, hydropower systems providing renewable energy, and inland fisheries supporting nutritious diets and livelihoods for local communities.

Mountain forests often collect water droplets from fog in a process known as “occult precipitation”. This makes local landscapes much more humid than if the forests were not present. Destroying these forests is therefore not only terrible for our global climate, but also for regional weather and biodiversity, since many species require the specific conditions created by this humidity to thrive.

But our study also provides some hope. If these forests store more carbon than previously assumed, it could allow us to increase the economic benefits awarded to developing countries who successfully decrease deforestation, meaning greater incentives for forest conservation – and better futures for those who call the mountain forests home.

Aida Cuní Sanchez, honorary fellow, University of York; Martin Sullivan, Lecturer in Statistical Ecology, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Phil Platts, Research Fellow, University of York

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Featured photo by Hamsavani Raja Komaraim/Scopio

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Conservation Through Public Health (CTPH), a grassroots NGO and non-profit founded in 2003 promotes biodiversity conservation by enabling people to co-exist with wildlife through integrated programs that improve animal health, community health, and livelihoods in and around Africa’s protected areas and wildlife rich habitats.

Through these programs, we have helped to mitigate these impacts. CTPH worked with Uganda Wildlife Authority and other NGOs to improve great ape viewing guidelines and prevent transmission of COVID-19 between people and gorillas. Park staff, Gorilla Guardians herding gorillas from community land to the park and Village Health and Conservation Teams were trained to put on protective face masks, enforce hand hygiene and a 10-meter great ape viewing distance.

To reduce the communities’ need to poach, CTPH found a UK-based distributor, for its Gorilla Conservation Coffee social enterprise enabling coffee farmers to earn revenue in the absence of tourism and provided fast growing seedlings to reduce hunger in vulnerable community members.

Lessons learned show the need to support non-tourism dependent community livelihoods, and more responsible tourism to the great apes, which CTPH is advocating to governments, donors and tour companies through an Africa CSO Biodiversity Alliance policy brief.

Source: Frontiers in Public Health
Photo by: Isabell Heinrich/Scopio

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The short film, which was launched during a webinar, highlights the dangers posed to the national park and local communities by oil exploration in the area. Together with Salonga National Park, the world’s second-biggest tropical rainforest reserve, these vulnerable areas may be auctioned in a new series of oil permits (https://reut.rs/3h8rGBJ) putting at risk not only endangered species, but also the source of income for many local communities.

Through this petition (https://bit.ly/3jB3Jo7), climate activists are appealing for support to bring oil exploration in the area to a stop, in order to avert the adverse effects on the communities and the environment.

Landry Ninteretse of 350.org said, “Virunga national park is one of the most biologically diverse areas in the world. Any oil activity in the park and its surrounding areas could permanently damage the rich ecosystems and biodiversity of the area and negatively impact hundreds of thousands of community members whose livelihoods depend on the park’s resources and activities. The government of DR Congo needs to put the environment and the people first, as opposed to furthering the interests of the companies that have been granted permits for exploration.”

Andre Moliro, Climate activist in DRC said, “The government should act in the interest of its citizens by protecting them and creating opportunities that benefit communities’ livelihoods and preserve the natural resources in the region. Access to clean energy is an integral part of sustainable development and commitments to mitigate climate change should be driving efforts to develop sources of alternative and renewable energy.”

Justin Mutabesha, Climate activist based in Goma, DRC said, “The need to hasten our efforts and support the drive for ecosystem preservation and clean energy access for all is critical. It should therefore be the government’s priority to ensure that no oil exploration or pollution occurs in Virunga and to accelerate sustainable livelihoods for the people and rich ecosystems of the area.”

Between 2005 – 2010, the Congolese government through the Ministry of Hydrocarbons approved licenses for oil concessions to foreign fossil fuel companies like Efora, Total, Socco, Dominion Petroleum to explore and operate seismic tests. This move is in violation of Ordinance-Law 69-041 of August 22, 1969, on nature conservation and international conventions ratified by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Watch the documentary: Fossil Free Virunga.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of 350.org.

For interviews and additional information contact:
350Africa.org
Christine Mbithi
Email: christine.mbithi@350.org
Telephone: +254725906695

Featured Image: Oren Cohen/Scopio

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Researchers from Oxford Brookes University examined 858 photos posted on Instagram from 2013-2019 under two hashtags — #gorillatrekking and #gorillatracking — and found most gorilla trekking tourists were close enough to the animals, without face masks on, to make transmission of viruses and diseases possible.

Examining the photos from people visiting mountain gorillas in East Africa, lead author and Oxford Brookes University Primate Conservation alumnus Gaspard Van Hamme said: “The risk of disease transmission between visitors and gorillas is very concerning. It is vital that we strengthen and enforce tour regulations to ensure gorilla trekking practices do not further threaten these already imperiled great apes”.

In January 2021, captive gorillas at San Diego Zoo tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, providing evidence that the current pandemic has the potential to also possibly also can affect great apes. Tourists’ photos examined for this research found people were close enough to the animals that disease transmission would be possible.

The importance of wearing face masks

Dr Magdalena Svensson, lecturer in biological anthropology at Oxford Brookes University added: “In the photos we analysed, we found that face masks were rarely worn by tourists visiting gorillas and that brings potential for disease transmission between people and the gorillas they visit. With people all over the world getting more used to wearing face masks we have hope that in the future wearing face masks will become common practice in gorilla trekking.”

Gorilla numbers in the balance

Mountain gorillas are endemic to the East African region. They are present in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Virunga National Park), Uganda (Bwindi Impenetrable National Park and Mgahinga Gorilla National Park), and Rwanda (Volcanoes National Park). In recent decades, these populations have suffered from the ill effects of human activities but in more recent years gorilla numbers have started to increase and now it is estimated that there are 1,063 individuals.

Dr Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka from Conservation Through Public Health, Uganda, said: “This research provides a valuable perspective on how much tourists are willing to share their too close encounters with mountain gorillas through Instagram, which creates expectations for future tourists. It highlights a great need for responsible tourism to provide adequate protection while minimizing disease transmission, especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Tourism: environment and wildlife

Trekking is an important financial support to mountain gorilla conservation. But large visitor numbers can impact on the wildlife and environment – guidelines to mitigate these include maintaining a minimum distance of 7 metres between visitors and gorillas. The Oxford Brookes study shows that these guidelines are not adequately followed and enforced.

Russell A. Mittermeier, Chair of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, who was not involved in the study, commented: “It has become apparent in the past few years that studies of anthroponotic and zoonotic disease spread are crucial to the field of primate conservation. With that in mind, it is very exciting to see the new research on this topic coming out of the Primate Conservation Group at Oxford Brookes University. While this study focused on one species, the mountain gorilla, the lessons learned are also applicable to many other primate species that are increasingly coming into contact with people. This line of research will certainly become more important in the future.”

The research paper Keep your distance: using Instagram posts to evaluate the risk of anthroponotic disease transmission in gorilla ecotourism is published in People and Nature.

Source: Oxford Brooke University
Pictured: Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei). Photo credit: Mark Jordahl

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OXFORD, 17 December 2020 – An international team has discovered the origin of the largest cargo of African ivory found from the oldest shipwreck in southern Africa.  

The discovery of a 16^th-century shipwreck has, with the aid of advanced scientific techniques, provided detailed insight into elephant herds living in Africa almost 500 years ago. But the study also highlights the extensive depletion of the West African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) due to the ivory trade, and the need for conservation of this majestic animal. The study, published today, was led by Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum and School of Archaeology alongside partner institutions in Namibia (the National Museum of Namibia), South Africa (University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria) and the USA (University of Illinois). 

This unique story that links shipwrecks with elephants came to life off the coast of Namibia in 2008, when workers mining for diamonds discovered the remains of the Portuguese trading vessel Bom Jesus. The ship was lost in 1533 AD en route to India, making it the oldest shipwreck discovered in southern Africa.Incredibly some of the ship’s structure and over forty tons of valuable cargo were recovered intact – including thousands of copper pieces (ingots), gold and silver coins. 

But the most fascinating items recovered from the Bom Jesus were a collection of over 100 elephant tusks, the largest archaeological cargo of African elephant ivory ever found. The tusks were of varying lengths and sizes, ranging in weight from 2-33 kg, and came from both male and female elephants, young and old alike. The tusks were in good condition thanks to the cold waters off the coast of Namibia caused by the Benguela ocean current. 

Elephant tusks are the source of ivory, which was a valuable commodity in the 1500s and would have been used to make jewellery, mirrors and combs, decorative items and religious objects. Tusks were often traded from Africa to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, but to find such a large number of tusks, and so incredibly well preserved, made this a unique find.  

“The shipwreck cargo contained materials from different parts of the world – Central European copper, German finance, Portuguese ship and perhaps crew, African ivory all destined for western India. This is an amazing snapshot of how connected the world was by the 1530s,” said Professor Shadreck Chirikure, School of Archaeology at Oxford University who led the study at Oxford University alongside Dr Ashley Coutu, Research Fellow at Pitt Rivers Museum. 

A team of experts – scientists, archaeologists and curators – came together to study the tusks and learn more about the elephants who bore them, before they were killed for their ivory. This is the first study to combine genetic, archeological and historical methods, providing much greater detail than ever before about the origin, ecological, and genetic histories of an archaeological ivory cargo.  

Scientists extracted ancient DNA – the chemical in the cell of every living thing that contains its genetic code – from the ivory to trace the source region and family history of the elephants. Ancient DNA analysis of 44 tusks determined that the elephants were Loxodonta cyclotis, or African forest elephants, rather than Loxodonta africana, savannah or grassland elephants. Further DNA sequencing traced the elephants to West Africa, which was surprising as it was expected the elephants would be from different locations across both Central and West Africa where trading networks to move ivory over long distances had been established thousands of years before the sailing of the Bom Jesus.    

Another surprise was that the elephants did not live in deep forests as most forest elephants do today. Dr Coutu studied the chemical elements in the tusks (stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen – isotopes are also used to determine the age of fossils through radiocarbon dating) to reveal that these elephants actually lived in scrubby woodland savannahs, not the deep tropical forests along the West African coast where almost all forest elephants live. “This information gave us a picture of the ecology of the West African forest elephant in its historic landscape. Knowing more about historic environments in which forest elephants thrived will benefit wildlife conservation today,” said Dr Ashley Coutu. 

But the research also reveals a loss of West African forest elephant herds in the last 400 years. The team found that the cargo came from 17 different herds with a distinct family lineage. Of those 17, only 4 of those same lineages still exist and are known from modern West African elephant populations. This means that the other lineages have been lost, primarily due to the hunting of elephants for ivory that took place in the centuries that followed.  

“The other lineages disappeared because West Africa has lost more than 95% of its elephants in subsequent centuries due to hunting and habitat destruction,” said Alfred Roca Professor of Animal Sciences from the University of Illinois who worked together with Oxford University on the project. The genetic information recovered from these lost herds adds a huge amount to the relatively limited amount of data available for scientists to study the remaining forest elephants across the African continent.     

The ivory trade, which continued up until the 20^th century, devastated Africa’s elephant population. Estimates suggest the population reduced from 26 million elephants in 1800 to fewer than one million today. A worldwide ban on ivory sales was instituted in 1989, which reversed the downward trend in the population. Despite the ban, the ivory trade continues illegally, and an estimated 20,000 elephants are killed in Africa annually. 

This research study was led by Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford University, one of the leading and best-known museums of anthropology, ethnography and archaeology in the world. It holds over 500,000 items acquired across 130 years, covering all periods of human existence.  

Pitt Rivers leads research on its collections and is actively exploring difficult histories and addressing the colonial past. Oxford School of Archaeology hosts world-class research facilities fundamental to addressing big questions relating to humans and their interaction with the environment in the past. This collaborative research across continents has provided an opportunity to look at the legacy of the ivory trade. But it has also introduced a new way to examine the vast collections of historic and archaeological ivories in museums across the world and showed the vital significance of science in this work.

“There is tremendous potential to analyse historic ivory from other shipwrecks, as well as museum collections. These scientific techniques are vital for understanding the histories of elephant populations, people who hunted and traded the ivory, as well as the global history of the ancient ivory trade, which increasingly drew Europe, Africa, and Asia together via the Atlantic Ocean,” said Dr. Ashley Coutu, Research Fellow, Pitt Rivers Museum. 

Source: Oxford University
Photo credits: National Museum of Namibia
Map created by Alida de Flamingh

The post Tusks found in 500-year-old shipwreck reveal origins of ancient elephants and impact of the ivory trade appeared first on African Conservation Foundation.

ACF has been selected as a nominator for the Earthshot Prize. Recently launched by Prince William, the Earthshot Prize is the most ambitious and prestigious of its kind – designed to incentivise change and help to repair our planet over the next ten years.

The Earthshot Prize aims to find new solutions that work on every level, have a positive effect on environmental change and improve living standards globally, particularly for communities who are most at risk from climate change.

Five 1 million-pound prizes will be awarded each year for the next ten years, providing at least 50 solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems by 2030.

These Earthshots are intended as “universal goals to repair our planet by 2030” and will go to the most effective and innovative ideas to help:

• Protect and Restore Nature
• Clean our Air
• Revive our Oceans
• Build a Waste-Free World
• Fix our Climate

Together, they form a unique set of challenges, which aim to generate new ways of thinking, and a whole new set of solution, systems, policies and scalable, reliable applications.

By bringing these five critical issues together, The Earthshot Prize recognises the interconnectivity between environmental challenges and the urgent need to tackle them together.

Prizes could be awarded to a wide range of individuals, teams or collaborations – scientists, activists, economists, community projects, leaders, governments, banks, businesses, cities, and even countries – anyone whose evidence-based solutions makes a substantial contribution to achieving the Earthshots.

We all might just hold the key to solving an environmental problem. This is why Prince William and Sir David Attenborough are are encouraging everyone to apply if they have got an idea that could help.

“We are extremely proud to be a Global Alliance Partner and to work together with The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and many others around the world to find solutions for global problems”, said ACF Director Arend de Haas. “The Earthshot Prize is a unique opportunity to boost emerging, regenerative solutions during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.”

Do you have any ideas or suggestions for nominations? Please feel free to contact us at info@africanconservation.org

For more information, please visit:
https://earthshotprize.org

“The Earth is at a tipping point and we face a stark choice: either we continue as we are and irreparably damage our planet, or we remember our unique power as human beings and our continual ability to lead, innovate and problem-solve. People can achieve great things. The next ten years present us with one of our greatest tests – a decade of action to repair the Earth.”

Prince William, HRH The Duke of Cambridge

The post The African Conservation Foundation has been named an official Nominator for the Earthshot Prize appeared first on African Conservation Foundation.