Adjoa Akpalu

Subsequent to the proposal to the Rufford Foundation, several stakeholder diversity meetings were successfully undertaken to ensure the proper take-off and implementation of the project. Government departments (e.g. Forestry and Wildlife Department), NGOs (e.g. Friends of the Earth, Ghana), community leaders and opinion leaders, as well as the District Council’s political representative, the Assembly member for the area were involved in several of those meetings. Women have received talks and motivation through informal meetings on how best they could benefit from the existence of the monkey sanctuary rather than getting involved in activities that would jeopardise the sanctuary.

Environmental and conservation awareness have vigorously been pursued by our volunteers in partnership with the local officers of the Friends of the Earth who we have been working closely with to ensure the active participation of local people. An important initial breakthrough of this project was to negotiate to successfully involve women at all levels of the management of the sanctuary. An afforestation committee is in place and seeing to the enrichment planting of the deforested areas of the reserve. We hope that our activities will be updated on the web very soon on the rather interesting emerging issues especially with interests from outside Ghana and what they intend to do. Find below some images from the project. Left: At a nursery site within the sanctuary with some of the nursery managers (project leader arrowed). Right: One of numerous meetings with the chiefs of the Atome village, the traditional custodian (arrowed white) of the sanctuary and the opinion leaders on progress and expectations.

Read about the latest progress of this project in the report below.

Read about the activities undertaken and findings of this project in the final report below.