Posts in category: News & Updates

As part of the DSPA Ecotourism Programme, a Primate Habituation Programme (PHP) was launched in 1997 with the main aim to habituate western lowland gorillas for tourism and research. To date, the PHP has successfully habituated three western lowland gorilla (WLG) groups while two additional groups are presently undergoing habituation. The PHP employs 60 local people as trackers (the Ba’Aka) and guides, based in two forest camps; Bai Hokou and Mongambe. Apart from being a source of employment to the local people the programme plays a vital role in DSPA’s management strategy by generating significant revenue and strengthening the vital link with the community, hence acting as an important conservation tool. Up to 2011 the PHP received about 550 tourists annually; including film crews and international journalists. Additionally, extensive research has been carried out from the PHP sites, resulting in numerous scientific publications. By 2012, gorilla tracking fees covered about 75% of the direct operational costs of the PHP and projections showed that the programme could potentially become self-sustainable by 2016. Gorilla tourism at Dzanga-Sangha thus can be considered one of the most successful WLG tourism and research programme in central Africa. 

With the above challenges it might be debated as to whether or not it is worth struggling to assure the continuous functioning of the PHP under such challenging circumstances. However, numerous arguments for supporting the project’s continuation emerge especially as calm slowly returned to the region. Indeed it can thus also be argued that the PHP is a treasure to be jealously guarded, even through the most difficult periods imaginable.

Event Resources:

Find the presentation slides here.

Find the webinar recording here.

Vultures provide critical ecosystem services, yet populations of many vulture species have collapsed worldwide. In Africa, vultures face a range of threats, most significantly poisoning and trade in traditional medicines. In this talk, The Peregrine Fund’s Darcy Ogada will present the first estimates of a 30-year pan-African vulture decline, drawing on results of a collaborative study recently published in the journal Conservation Letters. Populations of eight species assessed had declined by an average of 62%; seven had declined by 80% or more over three generations. Of these, at least six appear to qualify for uplisting to Critically Endangered status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). These estimates indicate that declines have occurred on a scale comparable to those seen in Asia, where the ecological, economic, and human costs of vulture decreases are already documented. Dr. Ogada will discuss these trends and threats to vultures, with a focus on her work on vultures in northern Kenya.

Event Resources:

Download the presentation slides here.

Watch the webinar recording below:

The ABCG Climate Change Adaptation Task Team (comprising staff from Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy,Wildlife Conservation Society and World Wildlife Fund) presented its findings from qualitative research undertaken through interviews and focus groups in selected African communities in which ABCG Group members work.  

Far removed from decision-making bodies and financial resources, rural communities in Africa and elsewhere are often left to their own devices to cope with and adapt to change. What can we learn from these communities? Can successful responses serve as models for others? Are unplanned responses leading to maladaption? How are responses, successful or otherwise, affecting wildlife and ecosystems? Because coping and autonomous responses go largely undocumented, we miss important opportunities to learn from the experiences of these communities and integrate learning into conservation planning efforts. This pilot ABCG project has begun to investigate this gap in our understanding.

Event Resources: 

Find the comprehensive report entitled ABCG Project Documenting Human Responses to Changes in Weather and Climate in Africa here.

Download the presentation slides here.

Watch the webinar via this link.

Rare, in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund and the University of California, Santa Barbara, is implementing its first global initiative: Fish Forever. The Fish Forever partnership aims to catalyze a global movement of near-shore fisheries reform in the developing tropics to ensure profitable and sustainable fisheries, while boosting livelihoods, protecting habitats, and enhancing coastal resilience. The aspiration is to motivate communities, and then nations, to adopt management systems of territorial user rights for fisheries combined with no-fishing zones (known as TURF + reserves) in five countries—Belize, Brazil, Indonesia, Mozambique, and the Philippines—by 2022. As of mid-2015, Fish Forever is being implemented in more than 40 sites around the world.

To help realize this ambition, Rare contracted Management Systems International (MSI), an international firm at the forefront of scaling successful development programs and innovative initiatives for more than a decade. MSI developed what have become some of the most widely used methodologies for scaling up—Scaling Up: From Vision to Large-Scale Change, and the Scaling-Up Toolkit—based on 10 years of learning from field experience. MSI and Rare developed a set of program proof points to validate the Fish Forever model and to rigorously test implementation modalities affecting the program’s ability to be widely scaled. MSI’s work with Rare confirmed the importance of considering scale from the program’s start, rather than trying to retrofit a proven product for scale later on.

Event Resources: 

Click here for the presentation slides.

Watch the webinar recording below:

Download the webinar recording here.

Poaching and trafficking of Africa’s wildlife is escalating to unsustainable crisis proportions. Dr. Muruthi’s presentation highlighted how the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and partners are responding under three key areas—Stop the Killing, Stop the Trafficking, and Stop the Demand. In 2012 AWF established, in addition to its overall conservation approach, a Species Protection Grants Program under which a $10 million Urgent Response Fund was started in 2014. 

 The talk discussed how species and populations for support are selected, which populations have been supported and which will be targeted in the coming two years. Countries targeted and specific support provided under Stop the Trafficking will be reported. Efforts under Stop the Demand have been targeted to China and Vietnam but recently AWF has embarked on a campaign focusing on Africa starting with Tanzania. AWF prioritized supporting boots on the ground, providing prosecutorial training, deploying detector dogs at ports, and campaigns towards reducing demand. Philip’s talk portrayed expenditures on each group of focal species including elephants, great apes, large carnivores and rhinoceros. Although the overall trend in poaching is of great concern, AWFs program combined with efforts of partners is achieving positive results in many focal populations. The poaching crisis is happening within the context of habitat loss and fragmentation and only through concerted efforts can the continued survival of Africa’s wildlife can be ensured. 

Event Resources:

Click here for the slide deck.

Watch the webinar recording below:

Download the webinar recording here.