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Sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered the glob­ally threat­ened white-​naped mangabey (Cer­co­ce­bus lunula­tus) in Ghana’s Atewa For­est. The mangabey — a rare ter­res­trial mon­key — is clas­si­fied as Endan­gered on the IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species™, but a recent assess­ment of its pop­u­la­tion points toward it being a step closer to extinc­tion. The pri­mate was known to live in only a hand­ful of sites in west­ern Ghana, east­ern Cote d’Ivoire and south­ern Burk­ina Faso, but was recently dis­cov­ered by A Rocha sci­en­tists in the Atewa For­est using cam­era traps.

White naped mangabey in Atewa For­est, Ghana; cam­er­a­trap image of 03.05.2017.
Image credit A Rocha International.

Dr Jeremy Lind­sell, sur­vey leader, A Rocha International

Andrea Dempsey, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor for West African Pri­mate Con­ser­va­tion Action (WAPCA) which sup­ports a cap­tive breed­ing pro­gramme for white-​naped mangabeys in Accra and Kumasi zoos says: “White-​naped mangabeys are so rare that I think these may be the first pho­tographs of them in the wild in Ghana. Find­ing them in Atewa For­est gives hope to our efforts to save them. Pro­tect­ing crit­i­cal habi­tat such as Atewa For­est will be key for their long term sur­vival.” Atewa For­est har­bours a high diver­sity of threat­ened and endemic species includ­ing birds, mam­mals, rep­tiles, but­ter­flies and amphib­ians. In recent months, the high eco­nomic value of the ecosys­tem ser­vices that Atewa For­est pro­vides to many Ghana­ians was high­lighted in a 2016 report to the Gov­ern­ment of Ghana titled The Eco­nom­ics of the Atewa For­est Range, Ghana. Chief amongst these ser­vices is the clean water sup­ply flow­ing from the Atewa hills on which over five mil­lion Ghana cit­i­zens depend.

West African Pri­mate Con­ser­va­tion Action — WAPCA

This makes it all the more con­cern­ing that the Gov­ern­ment of Ghana with the Gov­ern­ment of China wants to push ahead with plans to extract baux­ite — the ore of alu­minium — from the Atewa Hills at Kyebi. The hill tops of Atewa will be com­pletely removed dur­ing min­ing because the baux­ite deposits are only found in the top few metres. This will destroy all veg­e­ta­tion and asso­ci­ated fauna because baux­ite can­not be extracted using a low impact method. Re-​establishment of the orig­i­nal flora and fauna on areas that have once been mined is vir­tu­ally impos­si­ble espe­cially with highly com­plex and bio­log­i­cally rich forests like Atewa.

“Extract­ing baux­ite from Atewa For­est is incom­pat­i­ble with bio­di­ver­sity con­ser­va­tion and the ecosys­tem ser­vices that the for­est pro­vides. It will spell the end of the unique and irre­place­able species that the for­est con­tains,” says Jan Kam­stra of the Inter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Nature (IUCN) Nether­lands. A Rocha, IUCN Nether­lands and many other stake­hold­ers includ­ing inter­na­tional busi­nesses have advo­cated for Atewa For­est reserve to be upgraded to a National Park. The cre­ation of a new National Park at Atewa has sub­stan­tial local sup­port, includ­ing from the Okyen­hene of Akyem Abuakwa Tra­di­tional Area, where the for­est is located.

In a let­ter to the Pres­i­dent of Ghana dated 15^th Decem­ber, Dr Russ Mit­ter­meier, Chair of the IUCN Pri­mate Spe­cial­ist Group, together with Inza Koné, Ph.D., Pres­i­dent of the African Pri­ma­to­log­i­cal Soci­ety, write: “It is a mat­ter of some urgency that the for­est is prop­erly pro­tected both from hunt­ing and from habi­tat change… I urge then that Ghana’s com­mit­ments to the Con­ven­tion on Bio­log­i­cal Diver­sity and to the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals take prece­dence in this case and that Atewa For­est is removed from min­ing plans once and for all and made into a National Park.”

Mr Seth Appiah-​Kubi, Direc­tor of A Rocha Inter­na­tional, Ghana, said “The dis­cov­ery of this mangabey con­firms that there is more in Atewa For­est that we are yet to dis­cover, but mined today it will be lost for­ever. The threat of destruc­tion has hung over Atewa For­est for too many years now, so it is time for the Gov­ern­ment of Ghana to stand by its com­mit­ments to a sus­tain­able future for our peo­ple, to hon­our first of all his com­mit­ment to secur­ing our nat­ural her­itage, and also our inter­na­tional com­mit­ments, and to act to pro­tect this for­est in per­pe­tu­ity as a National Park. It would be appalling to see a deci­sion taken that would push so many species that much closer to extinction.”

A Rocha is a global fam­ily of Chris­t­ian organ­i­sa­tions that work with com­mu­ni­ties to under­take con­ser­va­tion work. Their work to pro­tect the Atewa For­est is sup­ported by the A.G. Lev­en­tis Foun­da­tion and the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs, Netherlands.

Remark by Moos: China’s involve­ment in the baux­ite min­ing, espe­cially because of the envi­ron­men­tal con­se­quences, is in stark con­trast to China’s deci­sion to increase their own for­est cov­er­age to 23 per­cent of total land mass by the end of this decade (Reuters, 05.01.2018). Africa’s min­er­als are cur­rently mined by China to meet its demand, dri­ven by increase of indus­trial pro­duc­tion and pop­u­la­tion size. Obvi­ously, ruin­ing ecosys­tems in Africa is OK, as long as China’s envi­ron­ment, social and rural, is improv­ing.

2018-​01-​05 17:09

(Source: A Rocha Inter­na­tional press release, 15.12.2017; Reuters, 05.01.2018)