West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change Program

2015-2021

W EST AFR IC A BIODI V ERS IT Y A N D CLIMATE CHANGE PROGRAM Final Repor t

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This publication was produced for the United States Agency for International Development by Tetra Tech, through a Task Order under the Restoring the Environment through Prosperity, Livelihoods, and Conserving Ecosystems (REPLACE) Indefinite Quantity Contract (USAID Contract No. AID-OAA-I-13-00058, Order Number AID-624-TO-15-00002).

This report was prepared by: Tetra Tech 159 Bank Street, Suite 300 Burlington, Vermont 05401 USA Telephone: (802) 495-0282 Fax: (802) 658-4247 Email: international.development@tetratech.com Tetra Tech Contacts: Stephen Kelleher, Chief of Party: Stephen.Kelleher@tetratech.com Vaneska Litz, Project Manager: Vaneska.Litz@tetratech.com Ed Harvey, Deputy Project Manager: Ed.Harvey@tetratech.com Citation: Tetra Tech. (2021). USAID/West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC), Final Report (2015 - 2021).

Disclaimer: This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

It was prepared by Tetra Tech. The contents of this report are the sole responsibility of its authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

TABLE OF CONTENTS WA BiCC PROGRAM OVERVIEW

- Overall Achievements

- Overall Lessons Learned

6 7 8

Component 1 COMBATING WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING 9

- WA BiCC Approach 10

- West Africa Strategy on Combating Wildlife Crime 11

- Building Capacity 14

- Strengthening ECOWAS 16

- Raising Awareness 17

- Lessons Learned 18 3

Component 1I INCREASING COASTAL RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

- WA BiCC Approach

- Coastal Vulnerability Assessments

- Landscape I: Sierra Leone Coastal Complex

- Landscape II: Fresco Lagoon, Côte d’Ivoire

- Strengthening the Abidjan Convention

- Raising Awareness

- Lessons Learned

19 20 21 23 26 29 31 32

Component III REDUCING DEFORESTATION, FOREST DEGRADATION, AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS

- WA BiCC Approach

- Landscape I: Ziama-Wolegizi-Wonegizi Transboundary Landscape

- Landscape II: Taï-Grebo-Krahn-Sapo Transboundary Landscape

- Landscape III: Gola Forest Transboundary Landscape

- Strengthening the Mano River Union

- Raising Awareness

- Lessons Learned

33 34 35 39 43 46 47 49

G L O S S A RY AbC

Abidjan Convention

CCAP

Climate Change Adaptation Plan

CITES

Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora

CSO

Civil Society Organization

CWT

Combating Wildlife Trafficking

EAP

Environmental Action Plan

ECOWAS

Economic Community of West African States

FDA

Forest Development Authority of Liberia

FFI

Fauna and Flora International

GKNP

Grebo-Krahn National Park

IUCN

International Union for Conservation of Nature

M&E

Monitoring and Evaluation

MoU

Memorandum of Understanding

MRU

Mano River Union

NAP

National Adaptation Plan

NGO

Non-governmental Organization

NPAA

National Protected Area Authority

PPA

Proposed Protected Area

RSPB

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

SLCLC

Sierra Leone Coastal Landscape Complex

SRE

Sherbro River Estuary

TA

Threats Assessment

TGKS

Taï-Grebo-Krahn-Sapo Transboundary Landscape Complex

USAID

United States Agency for International Development

VA

Vulnerability Assessment

VSLA

Village Savings and Loans Association

WA BiCC

West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change

WASCWC West Africa Strategy for Combating Wildlife Crime WCF

Wild Chimpanzee Foundation

ZWW

Ziama-Wologizi-Wonegizi Transboundary Forest Landscape

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Dear Reader, This report documents the incredible teamwork, innovation, passion, dedication, and commitment of our staff and hundreds of West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change (WA BiCC) partners who have worked together over the past five and half years towards the common goal of promoting conservation and climate-resilient, low emission growth across West Africa.

In my journeys around West Africa, from the Ziama Massif in Guinea to the Sherbro River Estuary in Sierra Leone, from the last remaining expanse of lowland rainforest in Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire to the traditional medicine market in Cotonou, Benin, I have seen farming, fishing and forest-dependent families work hard to adopt new technologies, better utilize their resources, and work with local officials and NGO partners to mitigate the effects of a changing climate. I have met the park rangers, customs agents, public servants, and community leaders who are taking accountability.

As a team, we watched our partners step up to preserve, restore, and sustainably manage these vibrant landscapes, essential to conservation and the survival of millions of West Africans who depend on them for their livelihoods. We have done our best to contribute skills and knowledge to transform and adapt public policies and conservation practices to foster effective wildlife law enforcement and share tools to support community efforts for better resource management. I have seen the future leaders of conservation in West Africa, and I believe in them.

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If at times, it felt that this program was a constant stream of studies and assessments, it was by design. If at times, we experienced information overload, it was to be expected. WA BiCC was designed as a learning program intended to set baselines for wildlife trafficking, coastal vulnerability, and the state of biodiversity and deforestation. Prior to our program, there were large gaps of information about these issues.There are some studies on the region’s elephants and chimpanzees, but precious few have studied insects, plants, and birds, for example. We are all learning together.

The pages that follow will show just what an exciting, rich, robust and challenging program WA BiCC was.The successes captured in this document would have been difficult to achieve without the support of USAID colleagues to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for being supportive and patient as we navigated the complexities of simultaneously learning, adapting and implementing activities. For our team, WA BiCC provided the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to contribute to the efforts to conserve the unique natural heritage of this beautiful region for generations.

WA BiCC marks a turning point in West Africa. This gift of solid science and reality-based fact-finding is already informing public policy across 15 West African countries. This information is also useful to USAID and development partners to base future biodiversity and climate change programming. What we have done is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. This program was not a terminus. It was just the starting point, and we still have so much work ahead.

Stephen Kellehar, Chief of Party, West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change Program

Project Overview

BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT: A JOURNEY OF LEARNING IN WEST AFRIC A The USAID West Africa Biodiversity and Climate Change Program (WA BiCC), implemented from 2015 to 2021, improved conservation, climate resilience, and low-emission development across the region of West Africa. The program generated, synthesized, documented, and disseminated knowledge and experiences critical in order to influence and inform effective public policy and practices to advance sustainable conservation and livelihood activities. WA BiCC employed a variety of approaches including a wide-reaching grants program in the program’s coastal and forest ‘learning landscapes’ where partners improved governance, practices, and policies that strengthen the conservation of threatened and endangered species, critical ecosystems and the well-being of the people and communities directly or indirectly dependent on functioning ecosystems. The achievements made in these unique landscapes simultaneously informed ongoing capacity-building, awareness and advocacy, and policy initiatives. All activities were supported by three guiding principles ensuring that gender and social inclusion, learning and adapting, and communications were integrated into programming. WA BiCC steered the overall direction of the program while working with regional, national, and local levels to address the following three core thematic components Component 1 COMBATING WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING • Improve policy and create an enabling environment for wildlife protection.

• Build capacity for wildlife law enforcement and prosecution.

• Strengthen regional and national cooperation in data generation, sharing, and use.

Component 2 INCREASING COASTAL RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE • Improve governance and policy reform that enables the protection of mangroves, coastal forests, watersheds, and marine systems.

• Use data to inform regional and national policies and practices.

• Integrate coastal issues into national climate change adaption plans.

N IGER MALI

SENEGAL GAMBIA

Component 3 REDUCING DEFORESTATION, FOREST DEGRADATION, AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS • Improve the management, including co-management pilots, of transboundary forest landscapes.

• Innovate community-adapted and integrated land use planning.

• Test novel approaches that reduce forest and biodiversity loss and carbon emissions

BURKINA FA S O

GUNEA B I S S AU

Abuja

GUINEA

BENIN

Mano River Union Headquarters

TO G O

Freetown

SIERRA LEONE

WABiCC Field Office

GHANA

C OT E D ’ I VO I R E

ECOWAS Headquarters

N IGERIA

LIBERIA Accra Abidjan

Abidjan Convention Headquarters

WA BiCC Head Office

At ne arly $54 mi l l i on, WA B iC C re pre se nt s t he l arge st inve st me nt i n We st Afri ca’s envi ronme nt al se ct or made be t we e n 2016 and 2021

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P ROT EC T I N G B I O D I V ERSITY AND ADAPTING TO C L IMATE C H ANG E IN WE ST AFR IC A

3

15

C ORE R E G I ONA L PA RTNE RS

5

CO U NT R I ES

ST R AT E GI C LAN D SC AP E S

IMPROVING LIVES

PROTECTING BIODIVERSITY

This page highlights a selection of life of project results and large-scale impacts made by WA BiCC between 2015 and 2021.

The detailed Indicator Table can be found in Annex 1.

$60M

Mobilized for conservation

500

Biomonitoring camera traps deployed

10

117,000

Flora and fauna rapid assessments

People reached with project activities

13

Country Biodiversity Assessment Threats

People received livelihood benefits

Species Scoping Studies and Action Plans

Hectares of land under improved natural resources management

8.8M

Greenhouse Gases MT equivalent reduced, sequestered, & avoided

STRENGTHENING CAPACITY

26

23,786

1.5M

3

Transboundary Agreements Brokered

People trained on natural resources management

11,262

7

CLIMATE CHANGE AND CONSERVATION AREA MANAGEMENT

11,505

People trained

CITES Master’s Grads

151

6

Supported laws, policies, regulations addressing conservation

Countries with integrated coastal issues in National Adaptation Plans

486

Institutions with increased capacity

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L ES S ON S F O R T H E F UTURE OF CONSERVATION PRO G R AMMING IN WE ST AFR IC A

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FACIL ITAT E CROSS-BO RDER DIALO GU E:

Transboundary management of shared natural resources can be achieved when the building blocks are carefully placed.

This includes bringing the two sides together on a regular basis, especially the technical teams. Ongoing discussion builds rapport, trust, and the excitement to work together for common goals. Once technical people are on board, they serve as emissaries to their respective managementlevel leaders and high-level politicians and ministers, who can leapfrog trust and knowledge issues since the groundwork is already in place.

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G ET T IN G A L OC A L ED GE:

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NEV ER UN DER EST IMATE O NE PERS O N:

Employing Grants Under Contract mechanisms across geographies, languages and grantee skill levels is challenging work, but it is worth it. Grantees offer advantages that core implementers cannot, such as relationships, historical knowledge of a country’s resource management processes and regulations, as well as relationships with local communities and understanding of cultural sensitivities. In addition, grantees do not pack up their offices and leave. They remain in country for the long haul and continue interacting with beneficiaries and landscapes.

Increase academic and direct support for professional training and mentorship for staff has the potential to influence public policy and the operations of regional partners and government agencies involved with natural resource protection and law enforcement. These “conservation protégés” help to ensure sustainability of results beyond life of project.

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S TRE N G THE N THE P O L I C Y- TO - P RAC TI C E L O O P :

Facilitate the formulation and strengthening of public policies and action plans that refine practices and instigate dynamic learning within communities and across landscapes and institutions by implementing the approaches that first seek to incorporate underlying context and risk factors.

S C I E N C E M ATTE RS FO R L E ARN I N G :

In-depth research methods in all matters of scientific exploration and surveying increase the rate of learning among stakeholders, both institutional and community-level, which increases the rate of policy dialogue and strength of advocacy for the interests of biodiversity in vulnerable landscapes.

I N FO RM ATI O N I S AN AS S E T:

Rural West Africans often lack access to the internet, quality education, and information about major laws and regulations, such as CITES and the management of protected forests and areas. It is critical to use strategic messaging in formats that are appropriate to the audience, and facilitate learning for those who most depend on these natural resources. Creative media like theatre, comic books, and radio dramas with callin shows, have delivered beyond expectations in seeding rural population and local authorities with messages about biodiversity conservation.

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Component I

Combating Wildlife Trafficking

WEST AFRIC A: WHERE WILDLIFE CRIME HAS THRIVED TOO LONG

PANGOLIN The world’s most trafficked wild animal, three of the eight species of pangolin are found in West Africa. The loss of natural habitat and deforestation represent the largest threats to pangolins, while the absence of regional coordination and action plans for pangolin conservation make them an easy target. The pangolin is used for traditional medicine and eaten as a delicacy, putting its survival in jeopardy.

Wildlife trafficking is a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise that has grown from being a conservation concern to an acute security threat. This transnational activity is often backed by organized crime networks that connect poachers and traders in Africa to traders and buyers in Asia, Europe, and the United States. Wildlife criminals have targeted the countries of West Africa due to inadequate wildlife law enforcement and lack of a coordinated transboundary response to trafficking. Each country in the region presents a combination of the following challenges: inadequate laws and regulations; lack of awareness about the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) compliance rules and enforcement responsibilities; and lack of technical expertise, capacity, and resources to detect and prosecute illegal trafficking cases hinder enforcement. The net result is a devastating impact on wildlife and its habitat as well as communities and individuals caught up in a dangerous and illegal enterprise. Despite the warning signs, the region of West Africa had never conducted a comprehensive assessment of wildlife trafficking and crime in the region that would allow authorities and citizens to more effectively fight this growing threat.

While other African regions have devoted attention and resources to these issues, a growing body of evidence, generated in part by USAID WA BiCC, indicates that wildlife crime and trafficking are on the rise in West Africa, and are sometimes linked to the illicit trade in drugs, arms, and precious minerals.

GUINEA Wildlife trafficking has threatened Guinea’s biodiversity for over 10 years. Violations include the issuance of fraudulent CITES permits and the illegal export of endangered species such as chimpanzees and manatees.

Monkey, pangolin, and turtle are readily sold as bushmeat in local markets, and Guinea is a likely trafficking route for tropical birds between Latin America and West Africa.

SI E R R A LE ONE Sierra Leone offers wildlife traffickers overland routes for bushmeat destined for markets in Guinea and Liberia and has an historical record of wildlife trafficking in marine species, including dried seahorse, with relatively few arrests. Customs officers have never received CITES training and rarely communicate with the police on wildlife crime and there is confusion about each group’s roles.

LI B E RI A Poachers are present in many of the country’s national parks and kill protected animals to sell as bushmeat in markets.

Liberians frequently eat bushmeat, a staple source of protein and a traditional part of their diet, and pangolins, chimpanzees, and African grey parrots are often sold on the streets of Monrovia. Illegal logging and overexploitation devastate wildlife destroying critical habitat..

CHIMPANZEE Regional animal sanctuaries report a constant influx

of orphaned chimpanzees to their facilities. While all commercial trade in chimpanzees in illegal, traffickers continue to abuse and evade laws in West Africa, where they can easily travel with smuggled orphans to neighboring countries through land borders and seaports where enforcement is weak.

ROSEWOOD The forests home to this popular hardwood are receding at an alarming rate in West Africa. The trafficking of Rosewood timber and products, often involves violence and transnational organized criminal networks, undermine good governance and the rule of law, and contribute to overall insecurity of the region.

SEA TURTLE All five marine turtle species found on West African coasts (green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead and olive ridley) are targeted as a source of protein (turtle meat and eggs) as well as for traditional medicine and jewelry.

AQUATIC LIFE The harvesting of aquatic wildlife species in West Africa is driven by the current high profit, low risk context of the market, which is under regulated. The ease of transport across international lines and spread of information fuel demand for illegal aquatic species and their by-products. Threatened species include sharks, rays, sea turtles, and aquatic birds. Some species in decline become increasingly valuable, particularly on the black market.

GHANA Ghana is a popular ivory and pangolin exit point within West Africa. Birds and reptiles are commonly exported through the airport where staff had never been trained on CITES and lack the ability to examine live animal shipments. They had relyied on importing countries for compliance. Despite this, customs have seized over 200 African grey parrots at the airport since 2010.

TO G O Togo’s forests provide habitat for highly trafficked species, and the country’s role in the illegal trade in wildlife is complicated by the fact that it allows the export of ranched specimens such as royal pythons and savannah monitor lizards. Togo has acknowledged the need to make wildlife crime a priority but still lacks a national strategy that could provide structure and resources for a stronger response.

NIGERIA Nigeria is a regional hotspot for transnational crime where wildlife is trafficked alongside other illicit goods, such as narcotics, along several prominent illegal trade routes. Although it has a strong legal framework to protect its rich wildlife heritage, enforcement is weak due to low capacity and the lack of a high-level strategic response.

Commonly trafficked wildlife include birds, ivory, and rosewood.

BURKINA FASO Burkina Faso plays a well-documented role in ivory trafficking along routes leading to Mali and Senegal to reach the US and Europe and routes to Togo and Benin to reach Asia. Customs officials have little knowledge of how CITES works, and typical contraband includes skins of big cats, rosewood, elephant skins, lion fat, crocodile and snake skins, and parrots.

H OW TO U S E I N F O R MATION AND KNOWLEDG E TO S T R ENG T H E N C O M MITMENT TO PROTECT WILD L IFE The WA BiCC approach explicitly linked policy and practice, so that relevant policies filtered down from the regional level, and good practices from local and national levels were pulled up for use by regional institutions, integrated into relevant policies, and then disseminated through the same feedback loop. Thanks to WA BiCC’s work, wildlife trafficking and the criminal activities that accompany it are more effectively and systematically better understood and addressed across the region. The following pages cover the major achievements made during the program’s five years.

M A J O R OB J ECT IV ES

Improving the region’s policy and enabling environment for wildlife protection

AC HI E VE M E N TS B Y THE N U M B E RS

Building governments’ capacity to enforce wildlife laws and policies and prosecute criminals

Strengthening law enforcement through improved data collection and sharing

11,500

People trained on Sustainable Natural Resource Management/Biodiversity Conservation

$30.3 M

Mobilized for biodiversity conservation

63

Supported laws, policies, or regulations that address biodiversity conservation

182

Institutions with improved capacity to address biodiversity conservation issues

13

Biodiversity Threats Assesments conducted

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A S S ES S IN G T H E R E G ION’S BIODIVERSITY THREATS I N T H E N A M E O F A COMMON STRATEGY The West African Strategy on Combating Wildlife Crime provides a framework to strengthen and operationalize national and regional policies, mobilize resources and use ECOWAS tools to encourage countries to collaborate and share information.

WA BiCC facilitated the process of developing a coordinated response and assisted Member States to develop nationallevel strategies and plans that align with and In 2015, the African Union made calls to inform ECOWAS policies. Central to this ECOWAS to begin implementation of its strategy were country-specific Combatting Strategy on Combatting Illegal Exploitation Wildlife Trafficking/Biodiversity Threats and Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora.

Assessments that identified gaps in capacity, In response, ECOWAS asked its Member coordination, tools, data generation and States to work across borders to protect sharing, and CITES compliance, among and manage the region’s forests and wildlife. others. The assessments required in-depth Implementation was slow, and action plans research, field work, and surveys to learn at the time were outdated and provided no about the state of wildlife trafficking and guidance on cross-border coordination. One understand each country’s institutional reason for lagging behind is that national capacity to enforce wildlife laws. The and regional government stakeholders had assessments now contribute to each few sources to draw on to understand the country’s wildlife trafficking strategy and state and dynamics of wildlife crime in their were used to develop the ECOWAS West countries: critical information for designing Africa Strategy on Combating Wildlife and implementing appropriate strategies to Crime-WASCWC, the region’s first such fight the growing threat was missing. strategy. This 10-year strategy addresses

wildlife trafficking issues in source, transit, and destination countries and guides a coordinated response by West African countries to combat the illegal wildlife trade.

The strategy’s six priority areas include: training; coordination; political commitment; disposal of confiscated specimens; equipment and staff resources; and raising awareness. At the request of ECOWAS, WA BiCC helped to organize a steering committee led by country representatives that leveraged partnerships with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), TRAFFIC and the CITES Secretariat, among others.

The WASCWC marks a major milestone in combating wildlife trafficking in West Africa. The next step is for the ECOWAS to establish the West Africa Network to Combat Wildlife Crime, the strategy’s proposed implementation mechanism.

ECOWAS allocated US$195,000 from its core budget to co-fund wor kshops for WASCWC development, mar king the fir st time the Community has specifically set aside funds to combat wildlife tr afficking.

“ T h e re su l t s a c h i e ve d i n t h i s s h o r t time frame are tremendous. With s u ppo r t f ro m WA B i C C , a l o t o f s t r u c t u re s h ave b e e n p u t i n p l a c e , c a pa c i t y i s bei n g bu i l t .”

J o h n so n Bo an u h , E C OWA S E nv i r o n m e n t D i r e ct o r

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PANGOLINS HAVE NO TEETH, SO THEY USE THEIR LONG SNOUTS AND TONGUES TO FEED ON MILLIONS OF INSECTS OVER A LIFETIME. THIS NATURAL FORM OF PEST CONTROL MAKES THEM VALUABLE MEMBERS OF THE FOREST ECOSYSTEM.

B ET T ER P R E PA R E D AND EQUIPPED TO FI G H T W I L D L I F E CRIME

The threats assessments carried out by WA BiCC provided the building blocks for training and capacity building exercises and helped to create the road map to improve the institutional capacity of stakeholders fighting wildlife trafficking across the region.

1. C I TE S TR A INING : Knowledge of CITES is inconsistent and not part of

information about seizures. Facilities to store confiscated wildlife specimens customs training programs. Beyond customs, no other departments have are inadequate. In some cases, authorities are unable to care for live developed any CITES-focused training material. Past training and workshops animals for extended periods of time and have no guidance on what to do in CITES have been sporadic and incomplete. Enforcement officers lack with them. access to the tools and knowledge necessary to identify CITES species.

4. LAC K O F S TAFF AN D E Q U I P M E N T: The lack of equipment limits 2. I N F OR M AT ION MA NAG EMENT: Most countries lack a central what wildlife law enforcement officers can do. Access to laptops, internet, database to record wildlife seizure data and keep records, making it phones, and radio communications is insufficient, particularly in remote impossible to report accurate information to the CITES Secretariat. areas. There are few vehicles available, so officers cannot patrol the There is little to no information flow on wildlife trafficking among areas for which they are responsible. Also lacking is access to a forensic government entities and customs, making it difficult for officers to laboratory, further hampering law enforcement operations. develop risk profiles.

3. D I S P OS A L OF CON FISC AT ED S PEC IMENS : Authorities lack

clear procedures for disposing of confiscated specimens and a lack of

5. U NCL E AR RO L E S , RE S P O N S I B I L I TI E S , AN D C O O RD I N ATI O N :

Customs officers do not fully understand the roles, responsibilities, and procedures of other services, particularly at border points.

6 . L AC K O F AWARE N E SS O F T H E LE GI SLAT I O N: Although some

stall owners at local markets seemed to be familiar with wildlife legislation, most of the population is unaware of the law or of what species are protected.

7 . WE AK WI L D L I FE C R I ME LE GI SLAT I O N: Legislation to protect

wildlife is inadequate, penalties for wildlife crime are exceedingly low, and infractions are poorly defined. There are inconsistencies between past and current legislation.

8 . S TATE C O RRU P TI O N A ND MO R A LE : Most countries experience

corruption at some level of government, including the involvement of high-level officials in wildlife trafficking. There is a low morale in frontline offices and ranger outposts with few rewards for good work, which disincentivizes work and pushes officials to corruption.

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T H E A RT O F W I L D L I F E CONSERVATION Species assessment reports and action plans provide critical information on the status, gaps, and opportunities for strengthening wildlife conservation and have the potential to establish and shape public policy while motivating stakeholders to work together and mobilize resources.

To complement the country-specific threat assessments carried out by WA BiCC, species-specific scoping studies for pangolin, rosewood, sea turtle, and other aquatic species were undertaken. These provide comprehensive information on a variety of issues related to these animals and their protection. Scoping studies, which are based off available literature and surveys across the region, provide a framework to guide policy and enforcement decisions aimed at strengthening compliance on CITES listings across the region. In many regards, scoping studies represent the first step towards the creation of species conservation and management policies.

WA BiCC also worked with conservation stakeholders like International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and CITES to promote strategic action plans and action groups who advocate protection for sea turtles, chimpanzees, elephants, and pygmy hippopotomus.

that outlines actions, methods, indicators, and identifies partners for certain objectives and strategies. The plan’s vision is to protect a connected landscape where western chimpanzees and their habitats are valued, protected, and thriving. The nine-point strategic plan includes filling gaps in research and data, developing policy and legal frameworks, setting up a regional coordination mechanism, monitoring and managing disease outbreaks, land use planning, raising awareness, and strengthening protected areas.

HERO ES IN A HALF- S HE L L

Building on the sea turtle conservation report, the IUCN, the Central African Network for Conservation of Sea Turtles, and WA BiCC established WASTCON: the West Africa Sea Turtle Conservation Network, to sharpen the focus on conservation of the species.

WASTCON, which includes members from 7 West African countries, analyzed regional priorities and concluded that A V I S I ON F OR T H E W EST ER N CHIMPANZEE resource mobilization, strengthening law enforcement The numbers of western chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes verus, capacity, and strategic planning and partnerships between have declined by an estimated 80% between 1990 and 2014, the public and private sectors and civil society are priorities. to a current 52,000 individuals. In 2016, the species was WASTCON is providing the framework for the conservation uplisted from Endangered to Critically Endangered reflecting of other aquatic wildlife species and supporting the the subspecies’ increasingly dire conservation status. WA development of a training toolkit and organizing training BiCC supported the IUCN to create a ten-year action plan programs for turtle conservation in the region.

THE P OWE R O F J UD GE S

M OV I N G T H E N E E D L E ON WILDLIFE CRIME Based on the country-specific CWT/Biodiversity Threat Assessments that revealed enforcement deficiencies, WA BiCC devised and implemented a capacity-building strategy that improved the knowledge and skills of professionals involved in wildlife crime law enforcement and CITES compliance.

During WA BiCC, the program trained over 11,200 judges, state prosecutors, and customs agents from the 15 ECOWAS Member States. The program used a Training of Trainer approach to create experts able to build the capacity of national authorities on the legal requirements relevant to the implementation of CITES under national law. Training sessions include CITES regulations, the use of CITES appendices, detection methodologies, and control of CITES permits.

Toolkits and CITES training manuals were developed and disseminated in English, French, and Portuguese.

Following a successful awareness campaign for biodiversity conservation and wildlife trafficking at Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport,WA BiCC

designed and piloted a CITES training module specifically designed for airport personnel to facilitate import and export processes in compliance with CITES regulations. The training manual, Combating Wildlife Trafficking in ECOWAS Airports, was then used at Abidjan International Airport, where trainers covered basic procedures and guidelines for CITES implementation for all types of wildlife and emphasizes veterinary, immigration, and customs best practices.

The program also deployed Protect-Detect training for park rangers and guards from the Niger, Burkina Faso, and Benin, which share the borders and management of the W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) ecological complex. The training built capacity in advanced law enforcement skills that improved their efficiency in the fight against wildlife poaching and trafficking, disrupting the illegal wildlife trade supply trade before animals are illegally killed or abducted. The ToT approach allows governments to take ownership of the training, adapt it to their own context, and replicate it.

GUINEAN CUSTOMS AGENTS IMPROVE IDENTIFYING ANIMALS.

CUSTOMS AGENTS FROM SENEGAL IN THE FIELD.

In October 2019, the program convened judges, prosecutors, and public officials from French-speaking ECOWAS countries in Côte d’Ivoire.The workshop provided participants opportunities to share their challenges and successes in wildlife crime enforcement, while trainers gave presentations on technical aspects of CITES compliance, including the identification of key species in trade such as elephant and pangolin, CITES permits, permit fraud and evidence management.

“We will share this training with the magistrates and with those who play a role in Burkina Faso’s criminal justice system so that we can improve our ability to prevent and fight wildlife crime.”

Alexandre Oboudo Magistrate in Burkina Faso, participant in the CITES workshops

“The role of the judge is to punish wildlife trafficking.”

Armand Gounon, Judge in Benin and participant in the CITES workshops

TRAINING OF TRAINERS FOR PARK RANGERS IN LIBERIA.

PARK RANGERS FROM BURKINA FASO IN A PROTECT-DETECT EXERCISE.

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A C ADRE O F W I L D L I FE EXPERTS WA BiCC assembled a group of 26 CITES specific wildlife and forestry experts from across the ECOWAS region to participate in a year-long Master’s program known as Management and Conservation of Species in Trade at the Universidad Internacional de Andalucia in Spain. This Master’s Program focused on providing specialized training on the scientific bases, techniques, and instruments that underpin CITES implementation and development and permit countries to more effectively meet their commitments under the CITES Convention. The program provided course lectures for three months on campus, after which students took on research and investigation in their respective countries.

Prior to 2016, only one West African student had ever gone through the course. WA BiCC, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, IUCN and ECOWAS collaborated to ensure students were positioned to excel by providing them with additional resources, including formal supervisors, seed funding for thesis research and mentoring by specialists in the subject matter. The French-speaking students received interpreters, an important first in the diploma’s 14-year history.

“In five years, I see myself as one of the top female advocates on CITES in Ghana. I am actively ensuring CITES awareness creation is at its peak and pushing for the CITES legislation to be adopted in parliament so that Ghana can move from CITES Category 3 to Category 1 country.”

Mercy Koomson, 2018 CITES graduate and Wildlife Manager at Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport “The Master’s program introduced us to the type of activities that take place at a CITES Conference of Parties, and then I attended the 2019 COP in Geneva. The presentation of data and compelling stories on the status of species management are critical in influencing support.

The contributions of the CITES master graduates were widely praised, something that made me proud as a conservationist and a West African.”

Yatta H. Kamara, 2019 CITES graduate and Wetlands and Marine Ecosystem Manager, NPAA, Sierra Leone

“The CITES training is so relevant to my work. It has motivated me to find a way forward and engage with the coastal communities where we work, and not just by telling them not to eat sea turtles and harvest the eggs, but by supporting education programs for them and showing them alternative forms of livelihoods.”

Felix Olusola Abayomi, CITES graduate and founder of NGO Wildlife of Africa, Nigeria “I am now part of a group of experts developing a strategy for the Africa Union to combat wildlife trafficking. As master graduates, we have improved the region and we are working together so that ECOWAS can manage biodiversity. Cohesion is important.”

Abba Sonko, CITES Graduate and Head of Wildlife at the Directorate of Water, Forest and Soil Conservation, Senegal

HOW O N E M AN C L O S E D A RO SE WO O D T R A F F I CKI NG RO UT E

When you ask Mawdo Jallow what he does in his free time, it’s clear that free time is not his main concern. The Gambian environmentalist runs the Aboku Nature Reserve in Banjul, where he houses and rehabilitates wild animals that have been captured, kept as pets, or seized from traffickers. At the same time, he established a sea turtle hatchery where he gathers the eggs of threatened turtle species that nest on Gambia’s beaches and releases hatchlings into the ocean, away from the people and feral animals that have damaged the sea turtle habitat in the Gambia.

On top of that, Jallow is always mentoring a group of community volunteers with his own wildlife rehabilitation curriculum. Every year, he sponsors one youth volunteer to attend college.

In 2018, WA BiCC selected and supported Jallow to participate in the Master's Degree program on the Management and Conservation of Species in Trade.

When Jallow returned, he immediately applied his newly-acquired expertise, audited the Gambia’s customs export permits, and realized the permits did not align with CITES regulations. He partnered with the customs department and trained its staff on CITES regulations “We realized that the Gambia was being used as an exit point to export Rosewood timber from Senegal, however, since our customs agents now know what to look out for and thanks to stricter checking mechanisms, this and other forms of trafficking have been greatly reduced,” explains Jallow.

Jallow is now working with a local task force on developing CITES legislation for the Republic of Gambia, legislation that will help to enforce the implementation of CITES regulations in the country.

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I N S T I T U T I O N A L S T RENGTHENING: ECOWAS

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a 15-member regional organization that promotes economic integration among its Member States. ECOWAS counts on its Directorate of Environment (DOE) to strengthen environmental governance and promote sustainable natural resource management. Early on in 2015, WA BiCC and ECOWAS developed an institutional strengthening plan.

Initial assessments showed that the DOE suffered weaknesses in communication and dissemination

and resource mobilization and lacked strategies to engage in either. In addition, DOE staff identified main issues revolving around an unclear and outdated mandate; no functional monitoring and evaluation system; and the lack of collaboration with partners on natural resource management assessments.

Although ECOWAS was a recognized leader and regularly engaged with international partners, including the United Nations, it was not leveraging its social capital to mobilize resources or to implement interventions as well as it could have.

WA BiCC embedded a full-time advisor in the Directorate to provide consulting and technical support. Under the plan, communications and M&E officers were recruited to develop respective strategies and train staff on the implementation of these plans.

The program also supported ECOWAS with technical advisors that conducted legislative gap analyses on existing regional environmental policies and threats, coordinated policy development, and initiated a resource mobilization strategy.

“Wi t h WA Bi C C we have lai d a ve r y good foundat i on t o l eve rage upcomi ng p rograms and t o go de e pe r i nt o i mpl e me nt at i on at t he communi t y, count r y, and re gi onal l eve l s.”

Dr. Johnson Boanuh Directorate of Environment, ECOWAS

M AJ O R AC HI E VE M E N TS

• Core Mandate: Updated Environmental Action Plan

(EAP) to integrate environmental threats to the region identified in strategic policy frameworks, such as the Paris Agreement on climate change and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The updated EAP was validated, presented to the Council of Ministers, and adopted.

• Resource mobilization: Drafted resource mobilization strategy, enabling ECOWAS to fund EAP activities and obtain an $8M USD grant from the Swedish government and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to support the implementation of its Forest Convergence Plan.

• Communications: Developed a communications and

information management system, which permits ECOWAS to disseminate policies and documentation and share data and information.

• Human resource development: Conducted reviews of existing policy frameworks to inform policy harmonization across Member States and built the capacity of member states through the master’s degree program in CITES implementation.

• Monitoring, evaluation: Developed and implemented an M&E system that tracks implementation of ECOWAS plans and policies.

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C O M M U N I T Y C O N V ERSATIONS Beyond the policy and law enforcement, there is often a lack of empathy towards environmental problems. West Africans face a variety of issues that range from food insecurity to unemployment, and from political instability to natural disasters.

Under these challenges, many people ask: Why should I care?

To help answer this question, WA BiCC employed a communitylevel strategy to promote biodiversity conservation and the fight against wildlife trafficking. The program used well known events like Earth Day and not so well known events like World Pangolin Day and World Endangered Species Day to target schools and youth groups with conservation and anti-trafficking messaging.

In one event, WA BiCC recruited high school debate teams to argue the merits and disadvantages of destroying wildlife products seized by the country’s authorities.

For World Wildlife Day, the program used flashmob tactics in Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport to disseminate a campaign for biodiversity conservation using an African dance troupe, music, and signs to remind thousands of people in transit about the importance of conserving aquatic animal life.

The program also organized community outreach campaigns, beach clean up days, and set up wildlife trafficking information booths in high traffic areas.

In 2020, digital awareness-raising campaigns came into effect just as the region’s populations were retreating to their homes due to the COVID-19 health crisis. The program’s communications team built and disseminated social media toolkits, held online video contest, and designed quizzes that could be shared via social media to reach a different slice of the region’s population.

One of the most innovative tools developed to raise awareness among West African children is this comic book. The children and youth that will grow up to be future leaders and play a vital role as allies and ambassadors for endangered and threatened species are critical in the mission to mitigate the effects of climate change and conserve wildlife.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

1. High School Debates for World Wildlife Day 2. World Wildlife Day Flashmob at Kokota Airport, Ghana 3. Targeting youth groups for World Wildlife Day 4. World Wildlife Day Cycling Tour 5 - 6. Youth and community teams at Earth Day Beach Cleanup 6.

A FU T U R E W I T H O U T WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING IS PO SS IBL E Over the next five years a united voice will help West African countries influence global policy decisionmaking, and a network of regional champions will continue to develop and implement a coordinated agenda for wildlife protection. As the ECOWAS Environment Directorate moves forward with the creation of the West Africa Network to Combat Wildlife Crime in order to implement the region’s new combating wildlife trafficking strategy, lessons from the program can help facilitate the pathway forward.

• Allowing ECOWAS to lead the policy development process enhances ownership and influences the interest of its members states.

As facilitator,WA BiCC supported ECOWAS in leading the policy development process enhancing ECOWAS’s ownership and consolidating a unified voice.

• Fostering a regional network of experts to lead the implementation of the strategy and to combat wildlife trafficking in their own countries reinforces cross-learning and coordination. Six CITES focal points out of 15 ECOWAS countries, including four of the seven-member WASCWC steering committee, are graduates of a WA BiCC-sponsored CITES Master’s Program, and they are instrumental in driving the policy implementation process in their respective countries.

• Empowering countries to drive the strategy development process solidifies commitment and enables quick uptake of priorities.The ECOWAS Commission convened country delegates and wildlife conservation experts around a common problem and each country presented the Threats Assessment findings, signaling their role in driving this process.

• Working simultaneously at national and regional levels builds a self-reinforcing ecosystem for action. Supporting a multi-level development strategy informed by the country-specific Threats Assessments contributed to building the foundational capacity to more effectively implement the regional CWT strategy.

• Aligning national- and landscape-level activities with regional policy frameworks improves the prospect of sustainability for this policy-to-practice loop. WA BiCC has anchored its support to a larger regional framework (ECOWAS and AU) so that activities are not only relevant during the life of the project but can be continued through other funding or partners to sustain the policy-topractice loop for combatting wildlife crime.

• Showing national stakeholders the gap between their commitments and actual implementation can catalyze action. Stakeholder validation of the threats assessments was critical to raising awareness because it underscored the gap between countries’ CITES commitments and their implementation, sparked dialogue and validated the findings as credible.

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“ I w i sh t o se e t he se champi ons m o ti vat e d and e ncourage d i n th e ir home count ri e s. Wi t h t he c u rre nt ge ne rat i on of w i l dl i fe c r ime fi ght e rs and C IT ES e n force rs, we have 50% of t he so lut i on t o our probl e ms.”

Daniel Moore, USAID’s West Africa Mission Director

Component II

Increasing Coastal Resilience

ON TH E EDGE: INTEGRATING COASTAL ISSUES INTO NATIONAL DIALOGUES

SENEGAL

Every day millions of people living along the coast of West Africa shoulder the effects of a changing and capricious climate. From season to season, climate variability makes coastal villages vulnerable to rising tides and coastal erosion. Fluctuations in ocean temperatures and anarchic human infrastructure development have led to massive losses of mangrove ecosystems critical to coastal resilience to climate change.

West Africa’s coastal systems are uniquely rich in biodiversity and natural resources and contribute to more than half of the region’s gross domestic product. Despite the value these resources bring, few if any governments have adequate funds and human and technical resources to measure and understand the impacts of climate change on their citizens and economy and develop ways to adapt.

Although countries are beginning to take the reigns, governments lack the resources to gather climate data while the unplanned growth of coastal urban centers and the lack of effective land use planning add to the issues that need to be addressed.

While the region’s coastal countries are signatories of the Abidjan Convention, a collective instrument that lays the foundation for sustainable management of marine and coastal resources, Parties to the Convention still lack adequate resources to put implement plans and strategies to protect coastal ecosystems. Coupled with this is the increasing understanding of the need for a holistic approach to integrate terrestrial ecosystems that form the watersheds of coastal landscapes, such as forests and rivers, as one undivided, integrated ecosystem.

NATURE’S SHIELD: MANGROVE FORESTS

Over the last 30 years, between a quarter and half of West Africa’s mangrove forests have disappeared. Despite restoration efforts, communities living on the coast that depend on mangroves tend to overuse them for fuel and building. In reality, mangrove forests are critical to coastal ecosystems where they provide breeding grounds for fish and oysters, protection from erosion and flooding caused by sea level rise, and raw materials that can be sustainably harvested. With no real historical data on these forests, the region’s governments have little information and evidence on which to base efforts to protect and restore them. In the same vein, understanding the vulnerability of local communities helps governments design livelihoods interventions that can sustainably support thousands of families without sacrificing renewable resources.

SI E R R A LE ON E In 2015, conservation work focused primarily on inland forest areas with little emphasis on coastal landscapes. Coastal areas fell under the jurisdiction of ten government entities, each with separate coastal resource management policies. Policies were developed with limited consultation, and the process for mainstreaming information related to climate change into various sectors of the economy for development planning was still unclear.

SIERRA LEONE COASTAL LANDSCAPE COMPLEX Since 1990, the total mangrove cover in Sierra Leone’s Sherbro River Estuary has fallen by 58% percent. One driver of mangrove destruction is the overreliance on mangroves for fuel, especially for the smoking and drying of fish. Common unsustainable practices also include cutting mangrove roots to harvest oysters. A common perception is that there are no alternatives for wood supplies.

GUINEA

TOGO SIERRA LEONE

GHAN A COTE D’ IVOIRE 19

LIBERIA

LIBERIA Six out of 10 people live within 25 miles of the coast. A one-meter sea level rise would inundate approximately 100mi2 of land, causing millions of dollars worth of damage in land and infrastructure such as hotels, roads, and homes, not to mention the loss of life. Liberia’s government lacks the capacity to translate climate information into decision-relevant actionable items, and interagency linkages and cross-sectorial coordination are weak.

C Ô TE D ’I VO I R E The Ivorian coastline is heavily shaped by upstream human activity that affects the productivity of forests, inland waterways and lagoons, watersheds, and agricultural land. In addition to the risks of climate change, urbanization and mining cause pollution and threaten coastal populations.

Until recently, the government did not view coastal landscapes as one integrated system that must be managed together with inland forests and water resources.

FRESCO LAGOON LANDSCAPE The Fresco Lagoon, classified as a Ramsar Site and home to endangered species like manatees and African grey parrots, is slowly filling with silt. While its shores are colonized for rubber and cocoa plantations, deforestation profoundly impacts the lagoon’s balance of salt and fresh water, killing fish and mangroves. As fishermen struggle, poverty increases, and more people turn to farming, exacerbating problems of erosion and the loss of forest.

W H AT T H E C OA S T C AN TEACH US ABOUT C L I M ATE C H A N G E A DAPTATION PLANNING WA BiCC worked with a variety of partners to better understand the ongoing and future impacts of climate change on coastlines and the options available and needed to address them. The program implemented an integrated approach across multiple levels of leadership, from local chiefs to regional policy makers.This approach was then tested in specific ‘landscapes’ with communities to identify, pilot, and scale up activities that develop adaptive capacity and sustainable livelihoods while strengthening resilience to the effects of climate change. The knowledge and information generated in these coastal learning landscapes was then used to inform national policies and practices and the integration of coastal issues into national climate change adaption plans. Finally, WA BiCC worked with stakeholders to improve the regional enabling environment by generating knowledge and lessons to inform more effective governance arrangements, policies, and practices that facilitate the protection of mangroves, coastal forests, watersheds, and marine systems..

M A J O R OB J ECT IV ES 20

Generate and use climate change data to increase coastal resilience

Add two protocols to the Abidjan Convention and support development of action plans

Strengthen capacity of government institutions to address coastal climate impacts

Lead climate change adaptation activities in the Sierra Leone Coastal Landscape Complex

Lead climate change adaptation activities in the Fresco Coastal Landscape, Côte d’Ivoire

128

7,258

$15.4 M

AC HI E V E M E N T S BY T H E NUM BERS

6

Countries with integrated coastal issues in the National Adaptation Plans

33

Laws, policies, regulations or standards addressing climate change adaptation

Supported laws, policies, or regulations that address biodiversity conservation

People supported to adapt to climate change

Mobilized for Climate Change Adaptation

ES TAB L I S H I N G A B A SELINE: A S S ES S IN G V U L N E R ABILITY TO CLIMATE CHAN G E

VULNERABILITY ASSESMENT

WA BiCC carried out two climate change vulnerability assessments for targeted coastal areas in Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, in order to understand just how vulnerable communities and marine environments are to climate change and exacerbating impacts made by humans.

In West Africa, conservation efforts have historically emphasized the region’s rainforests, while the protection of coastal areas has haphazardly fallen on the shoulders of various ministries and government entities, each responsible for a separate coastal resource management policy. Since many of these policies have never been operationalized in the field, coastal communities have received relatively little support to weather the effects of climate change on their land and their lives.

WA BiCC worked in two learning landscapes: The Sierra Leone Coastal Landscape Complex and Fresco Lagoon Landscape in Côte d’Ivoire, which are home to dozens of coastal communities. The Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments reviewed all available data on mangrove forests and other natural resources as well as economic activities and socio-cultural characteristics of each community, which gauged the pressure that is placed on various parts of the ecosystem. The study took into account each community’s exposure, sensitivity, and capacity to adapt to a changing climate and relied on scientific data, household surveys, and community discussion groups to inform the resulting action plans and recommendations.

Experiences from these pilot activities in the landscapes provided the governments with real data and lessons that D ue to the scar city o f har d provided models for replication in other coastal communities. d ata, WA BiCC cond ucted The experiences in these landscapes were captured and used as inputs at WA BiCC workshops aimed at building the capacity of b o tto m -up assessm ents government leaders to develop or adapt National Adaptation that b ase r esults on sur veys Plans, while recommendations from the assessments provided and exp er iences o f coastal the groundwork to draft new protocols for the Abidjan dweller s, w hich d ictate that Convention, a WA BiCC implementing partner. by ad d r essing vulner ab ility These exhaustive assessments and recommendations helped today, it is p ossible to r ed uce WA BiCC to design and prioritize activities that would be implemented over a two-year period (see sidebar). v ulner ab ility in the futur e .

OPTIONS ANALYSIS

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CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION PLAN

MANGROVE RESTORATION ACTION PLAN

SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS ACTION PLAN

COASTAL LAND GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES

OPT I O NS A N A LYSIS

Based on the findings of the initial vulnerability assessment, WA BiCC engaged hundreds of stakeholders in a series of options analysis workshops along Sierra Leone’s coast. The workshops allowed the program to identify possible interventions to improve coastal resilience and created linkages between stakeholders in coastal villages and national-level leaders such as the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Food Security and its National Protected Area Authority.

C L I M AT E CH A N G E A DA PTATIO N PLAN

AC T I O N PL A N FOR M A N GROVE RES TO RATIO N

With WA BiCC’s support, local community leaders and government authorities involved in the management of coastal zones in Sierra Leone, including the paramount chiefs of coastal chiefdoms, developed a Climate Change Adaptation Plan for Sierra Leone’s Coastal Areas. The plan builds on the vulnerability assessment and integrates the outcomes of the options analysis, stakeholder consultations, science-based best practices, ongoing experiences and past lessons from climate change adaptation interventions.

The two-year Action Plan (2018-2019) outlines an incremental approach to the restoration of the degraded mangrove areas mapped in 2016. The plan provides guidance on a variety of mangrove restoration approaches, community participation and education, research and monitoring and evaluation. WA BiCC provided tools and training on mangrove restoration, ranging from establishing mangrove nurseries to transplanting mangrove saplings from robust to degraded areas.

S U S TA INA BL E L IV EL IH OOD AC TIO N PLAN

The two-year Sustainable Livelihood Action Plan (2018-2019) was designed to guide and promote actions that increase individual and community capacity to sustainably manage mangroves, excel at sustainable income generating activities, and raise awareness on the value of the integration of climate change mitigation and adaptation into livelihood practices.

WA BiCC identified five livelihood development opportunities: sustainable coastal fisheries management, microcredit and savings, improved agriculture practices, skills training and improved fish preservation techniques.

22

C OA STA L L A ND G OV ER NANC E S TRU C TU RES

To help sustain these interventions WA BiCC supported communities to establish the Coastal Chiefdoms Natural Resources Management Network to assist with land use governance in coastal communities.The CCNRM was launched with 38 core members representing national institutions, local councils, and 22 chiefdoms located in the four coastal areas of the Sierra Leone Coastal Landscape Complex.The Network established a road map to facilitate meaningful and sustained local involvement while fostering local ownership and initiative in the design and delivery of climate adaptation solutions. Fifteen members of the Network were trained on mainstreaming Early Warning Systems, Communications and Advocacy to strengthen their understanding and leadership of climate change adaptation and coastal resilience activities.

CO MMUNIT IE S T R ANS PLA N T E D 5 5 ,0 0 0 M A N GROVE SE E D L ING S OV E R AN A R E A O F SI X HE CTA R E S. In Sier r a Leone , WA BiCC wor ked with 25 coastal communities to restore degr aded mangrove areas by identifying and prepar ing degr aded areas for restor ation and planting, collecting planting mater ials like stem cuttings and wildings, and creating a mangrove seedling nur ser y. Making the connection between the r apid erosion of far mland and towns and the over use of mangrove wood for fuel and oyster har vesting is the most effective way to per suade communities to lead on mangrove restor ation. Over all lessons from mangrove restor ation activities showed that communities must be the leader s that initiate restor ation activities.

EFF EC T IV E C O O R D I NATION FOR COASTAL GR E AT SC AR CI E S R I VE R E ST UARY

A DAP TAT I O N R E QU IRES COMMUNITY BUY-IN The communities living in coastal villages play perhaps the largest role in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change across Sierra Leone’s coast. Many of these communities are located within chiefdoms led by Paramount Chiefs and their councils, and without their participation, long-term planning and the adoption of best practices are hindered. Building on the support for the Coastal Chiefdoms Natural Resources Management Network, WA BiCC worked with the Chiefs to scale down land use governance to local land management structures to be more efficient and effective.

Following consultations with communities from the ten chiefdoms and two councils that make up the Sherbro River Estuary (SRE), community stakeholders unanimously agreed that the creation of a new governance structure was essential. WA BiCC worked with SRE stakeholders to create a Co-Management Committee in early 2020 and carried out community mapping and action planning to ultimately develop the country’s firstever Co-Management Plan.These workshops and meetings brought more than 200 participants,men, women and youth, from diverse backgrounds, as well as high-level government officials including Ministers and representatives from the National Protected Areas Authority (NPAA).

WA BiCC helped to build the Committee members’ capacity in environmental laws and

regulations related to marine ecosystems, wildlife and CITES, and fishery management.

The Committee then developed a road map for institutional strengthening and key priority actions plans and began mobilizing startup funds through contributions and pledges.

With NPAA’s support, the Co-Management Plan was approved in September 2020. The comprehensive plan documents the estuary’s biodiversity and threats while mapping out its history, growth, and socio-economic implications.

The overall process made history in Sierra Leone as the first time that a marine and coastal landscape in Sierra Leone has benefited from an inclusive, participatory, and stepwise process.

SI E R RA LE O N E R I VER E ST UARY

F ree town

LA N D SC A PE I

YA R I B AY

SIERRA LEONE’S NEWEST PROPOSED RAMSAR SITE

The Co-Management Plan also became the main source of information for the completion of the application to designate the SRE as a Ramsar Site and Wetland of International Importance under international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. The designation is an equally important outcome of the local governance structures around the Sherbro River Estuary, and is the experience on which the NPAA can base future submissions for Ramsar listings. The improved capacity will no doubt benefit other coastal landscapes in Sierra Leone in the future.

Ky c ho n

“ O ur co m munities have b een suscep tible to a ser ies of clim ate change-r elated im p acts o n livelihood s and b io d iver sity.

U S A I D’s inter vention has b een the op p or tunity we need ed to tr ansfo r m our know led ge , attitud es and p r actices tow ar d s b iod iver sity conser vation and clim ate change issues.”

Papa Pwe, Paramount Chief of the Bagruwa Chiefdom in the SRE

SI E R R A LE O N E 23 COA STA L LA N D SC A PE CO M PLE X

S he ng e

S H ER BRO R IV ER ES T UA RY S H ER BRO IS L A N D Bo nt he

A W I N - W I N FOR FA R MER S A ND NATU RE

Four communities of the Sherbro River Estuary tested an integrated ricemangrove planting project in collaboration with the NPAA. Farmers planted mangrove trees around the edge of their rice farms to prevent erosion and protect their crops. The clearing of mangroves for rice cultivation is one of the main driver’s of mangrove forest destruction. While rice farms thrive, rising sea levels and ocean currents slowly reduce available farmland, perpetuating a cycle of coastal erosion. To make matters worse, farmers use small mangrove trees and branches to build fences to protect their crops from manatees and large fish. An initial 23 farmers agreed to plant mangroves, and impact assessments showed improved health of young mangroves as well as increased interest from neighbors, who have noticed the farmers who no longer have to spend the time to fence in their farms.

U S ING B ARRI E RS TO OVE RC O M E O B S TAC L E S

The Climate Change Adaptation Plan explores the use of low-cost and locally available materials in order to design infrastructure that is affordable and replicable. As result of consultations with locals in target villages, WA BiCC designed a natural embankment concept that would increase resilience to climate change by buffering sea level rise, reducing erosion, and catalyzing mangrove rehabilitation and growth. Oyster shells, a locally available material, can serve two important functions at once: strengthening the shoreline when mixed with sand or soil and preventing flooding by allowing water to flow through. The program worked with in collaboration with the NPAA and a representative of the Coastal Chiefdoms Natural Resources Management Network. With tools and training, four communities constructed sand and oyster shell embankments, protecting more than 5,000 people from unexpected flooding and storms. Each community established an embankment committee, which faced challenges to recruit local workforce and maintain the barriers.

B U I L D I N G FI N AN CI A L R E SI LI E NCE

WA BiCC supported and encouraged Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) as an economic strengthening tool to provide coastal communities with savings, credit, and insurance services that have the potential to build the financial strength and adaptive capacity of households over the long term. Incremental capital buildup can end up saving beneficiaries from serious disabling debt, caused by climate change events like strong storms, floods, and rising sea levels. WA BiCC built on existing VSLAs and created new ones in 26 coastal communities. In total, the program supported 78 VSLAs with 159 members. WA BiCC developed a training manual specific to coastal landscapes that focuses on leadership, governance, advocacy, and financial literacy, while promoting a culture of transparency, sustainability and teamwork.

A neighb o r ing co m munity help ing out w ith embankm ent co nstr uction r ep licated the activity in their com munity, p r oving that w ith lead er ship, a lo cal initiative can lead to success.

“ Pl a nti ng mangroves next t o my r i ce w a s r e a l ly g o o d fo r me , becaus e pre v i ou s ly I u s e d t o g o t o t he bush to cut trees to u s e a s fe n ce t o pr ot e ct my r i c e from s eawe e d. Now I k n ow t h a t ma n g r ove s c an b enefit me , s ince I don ’ t h ave t o g o t o t h e fo rest s ever y year for trees .”

Mariama, rice farmer in Keiga, Sherbro Estuary

Impact assessments showed that 8 out of 10 member s said the VSLA scheme helped decrease the destr uction of mangroves. And more than half said the savings group helped the community reduce poor fishing pr actices, by allowing member s with loans to procure improved, legal fishing nets.

S AV I N G M A N G ROV E S TO SAVE LIVES committee and began preparing degraded land for mangrove seedling transplantation.

Where large sections of Gbongama mangroves were once cleared for firewood and agriculture. land, now small green “Before we were catching good fish. Now we’re not,” says Musa mangrove shoots poke through the dried mud.Thanks to local Lahai, the deputy chief of the village Gbongboma, located on leadership, Gbongboma’s residents cultivated a mangrove Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone. nursery and replanted nearly two hectares of mangroves.

The traditional fishing village is home to nearly 100 people As seas rise and the climate warms, the people of the Sherbro who depend on oysters and fishing for River Estuary must seek new opportunities. “I “We have lear ne d survival. But over the last ten years, making a feed 17 people,” Musa Lahai says. “We must find that fis h come living on fish and oysters has become increasother ways to survive.” For years, the women to lay eggs and ingly difficult, Lahai says. The surrounding of Gbongboma have used mangrove wood to oys ter s s pawn in seas are being overfished by offshore smoke the fish from the day’s catch. the m angroves and trawlers, some foreign, that use illegal nets Thanks to increased awareness coupled the y can protect to sweep up too many fish. Lahai doesn’t with the mangrove restoration actions, some our village agains t know it, but there is a less obvious but just women are converting to farming as they the wind and wave s . as important reason that fish are scarcer: adapt to changing realities. To help ease the We are wor king on the unsustainable harvesting of mangroves, transition of livelihoods, the village has set up m angrove res tor ation which the village uses for firewood, smoking a village savings and loan association using the and are s ee ing more fish, and construction. skills gained from a WA BiCC training. Each fis h and oys te r s now.”

WA BiCC began working in the village member contributes anywhere from $.50 Morie Kelfala, Gbongboma’s in 2017 and used a community-based to $10 dollars each month to a community mangrove restoration vulnerability assessment to guide the loan fund. Musa Lahai has already used this committee member program’s interventions. First, WA BiCC microcredit scheme to di-versify her income. worked with paramount chiefs and coastal community Being able to rely on a small fund helps Gbongboma adapts leaders to discuss restoring and protecting mangroves. to its changing environment.

Lahai acknowledges that he and his neighbors have been In many ways, Gbongboma’s problems are Sierra Leone’s cutting down mangroves for years, but were prepared to problems. Mangrove restoration efforts and alternative change the practice when WA BiCC made the connection livelihood development, when supported by communities and between loss of mangrove habitat and diminishing fish and embraced by the government, have the potential to be scaled oyster populations. Following workshops on mangrove up and can make vulnerable communities on the coast more restoration, the village created a mangrove restoration resilient to an uncertain future.

A village in the Sherbro River Estuary exemplifies how a community came together to deliver on a mangrove restoration action plan, change old habits, and increase resilience to climate change along Sierra Leone’s coasts

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L ANDSC A PE I I : F R E SCO LAGO O N C OASTAL LA N D SC A PE , CÔ T E D ’I VO I R E “U n de r n ew I vo i r i a n l e g i sl a t i o n , w h i c h cap t u re s m a j o r p r i n c i p l e s o f i n t e g r a t e d coas t a l z o n e m a n a g e m e n t , t h e M i n i st r y o f E nv i ro n m e n t i s c o m m i t t e d t o p ro m o t i n g t h e p ro t e c t i o n a n d d evel op m e n t o f t h e e n t i re c o a st , r a t h e r t h a n j u st a few v u l n e r a b l e h o t sp o t s”

F r esco

F R E SCO LAGO O N

P ro fe sso r Er ic Valè re Djago u a Co astal Zo n e Man age m e n t P ro gram , Min istr y o f Env iro n m e n t

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6

Committees and cooperatives supported to establish startups and produce

Community development plans were created to manage environmental risks and the lagoon’s channel to the sea

6,000

35,219

10

Shade plants for

100

Hectares of agroforestry

People received messaging and education about the effects of climate change and coastal resilience

A T E STING G RO U ND FO R BE T T E R LAND MANAG E ME NT

Until recently, Côte d’Ivoire’s government did not consider the Fresco Landscape as vulnerable as other coastal landscapes where communities and the ecosystems they depend on are exposed to extreme and harsh climate events. Following WA BiCC’s interventions, the Ivoirian government now considers its entire coast as a connected system that must be managed as an integrated whole.

Building on the WA BiCC vulnerability assessment of the Fresco Lagoon, program partner IMPACTUM carried out additional studies in conjunction with government agencies, CSOs, and the private sector to better understand the gravity of the environmental issues facing Fresco’s inhabitants and natural resources. Additional studies looked at aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems such as coastline dynamics, the hydrodynamics of the lagoon, physicochemical analysis of the water and sediments in the lagoon, and made assessments of the Port Gauthier and Okromoudou classified forests, in order to inform recommendations for management of this coastal region. In this context, IMPACTUM began the iterative process of mobilizing community and government resources to make households less vulnerable and more resilient. The Fresco Lagoon became one of the first places in West Africa to test Abidjan Convention Protocols on the Sustainable Management of Mangroves and Integrated Coastal Zone Management on the ground.

I N S Y NC : O C E A N , L AGOON, AND FOREST The village of Fresco Plage in Côte d’Ivoire is precariously beautiful. Hundreds of small houses made of rattan, bamboo, and cinder blocks sit on a sliver of sand a few hundred meters wide. On one side, the Atlantic Ocean laps against the sand; on the other, the shallow and tranquil Fresco Lagoon.

As the climate changes, storms increase, sea levels rise, and homes are washed away.To make matters worse, the lagoon is filling with silt and is heavily polluted. Due to deforestation caused by unregulated agriculture, silt runoff is filling the lagoon and bringing with it pesticides, heavy metals, and human waste. During heavy rains or storms the village can flood from both the ocean and lagoon facing fronts.

“Climate change has affected us a lot. In June, the tides rise and cause damage to our houses. All of our kitchens fall down with water,” explains Nando Kwesi Antoine, the chief of Fresco Plage. Plus, every year, the silting closes the lagoon from the sea, affecting the sea water- fresh water balance

and killing fish. and mangroves. In 2019, WA BiCC and local NGO partner IMPACTUM began working with the Fresco Lagoon communities, numbering over 40,000 people, to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. Building on the vulnerability assessment carried out by WA BiCC, IMPACTUM studied the chemical, and microbiological characteristics of the Fresco Lagoon and found that 80% of the marine pollution comes from land-based activities, including inputs like pesticides and bacteria like fecal coliforms at levels detrimental to human health.

Due to the environmental degradation, residents can no longer rely on a steady supply of fish from the lagoon and have turned to cocoa farming in the adjacent forests.

Unaware of its detrimental downstream effects, many farmers cleared forests in order to establish plantations. Farmers and IMPACTUM worked together to promote sustainable agriculture practices. First, the community established natural

resources management committees represented by women, men, elders, and youth. Then, IMPACTUM provided nearly 200 agriculture kits to cocoa farmers with diseased plants associated with a changing climate. The kits help to diversify their plots with cassava farming and include training and materials for processing and marketing cassava products.

The towns of Fresco and Kpandadou farming communities committed an average of $4,000 USD in co-funding.

Six communities worked together to manage environmental risks and the lagoon’s ocean channel. They also tested sustainable ovens for drying fish and planted 6,000 shade trees on 100 hectares land that will be used for agroforestry.

These interventions and renewed awareness for the lagoon have resulted in a reduction of human excrement on the beaches, and now the community land use committees are lobbying the national government for bans on at least 40 agro-chemicals found in the water.

“The ecosystems t h a t s u ppo r t a n d pr o t e c t t h i s l a n ds c a pe a r e t h r e a t e n e d by the same human be i n g s t h a t a r e t h e be n e fi c i a r i e s .”

Aboh Koffi Jerome, Prefect of Fresco

T h e Fresco L agoon i s grappl i ng w i t h th e in te rc onne ct e d pre ssure s of cl i mat e c h a n g e , se a l eve l ri se , coast al e rosi on a nd e nvi ronme nt al de gradat i on.

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U S I N G C L I M AT E DATA TO IMPROVE ADAPTATION PL ANNING National Adaptation Planning is a flexible process that helps countries with medium and long term climate adaptation planning by building institutional capacity and facilitating the integration of climate change adaptation into relevant new and existing policies, programming, and activities.

Efforts to improve coastal management are still constrained by inadequate policies and institutional governance. The failure to integrate a cohesive strategy and knowledge-based approaches to natural resource management is leaving some coastal communities on their own to adapt to the effects of climate change.

Spurred by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, West African countries have adopted the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) framework, which gives countries a shared approach to integrating climate change adaptation into more effective policies and practices over the short, medium, and long-term.

WA BiCC, in collaboration with NAP Global Network, organized regional and national workshops across seven coastal countries, Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo, to increase the capacity of more than 100 stakeholders from climate-sensitive sectors and

train them on understanding climate information, its sources, and its limitations.

WA BiCC hosted workshops in individual countries as well as regional workshops in which government stakeholders could share their experiences in the National Adaptation Planning process. These workshops helped create a community of practice and raise awareness about the opportunities for strengthening climate information for adaptation planning.

In the workshops, participants identified gaps in climate and environmental information necessary for NAP development, and listed short, medium and long-term actions to strengthen the integration of coastal issues into adaptation planning. Finally, participants identified the interventions and approaches that could help to reduce the impacts of climate change on coastal areas. All participants were actively creating and updating their nation’s NAP and will continue applying their new skills and knowledge to the planning efforts.

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B U I L D I N G C APAC I TY I N L I B E R I A

In the Liberia workshop, the participants engaged in an exercise to generate and analyze climate, hydrological, and meteorological data, while the rest used the same information for national climate change adaptation planning. The two groups then shared feedback to determine if the data was useful and how it could be better used to justify interventions.

By the end of the workshop, participants agreed upon a set of recommendations and changes to the institutional structure to foster improved inter-agency coordination and a national awareness campaign on climate adaptation.

A DDI T I O N A L A B I D J A N PROTOCOLS WILL IMPROV E P ROT EC T I O N S O F MARINE ECOSYSTEMS WA BiCC worked with the Abidjan Convention Secretariat to draft, present, and ratify two protocols at the 2017 Abidjan Convention Conference of Parties

The management of marine ecosystems is the central mission of the 1981 Abidjan Convention because of the important environmental role they play in protecting against the harsh effects of climate change and providing livelihood and economic opportunities. With the support of WA BiCC, two additional protocols were added.

#1

C A L AB A R PROTO COL

#2

POINT E NOIR E PROTO COL

SUSTA IN A BL E MANAGEMENT O F MANGROVES EC O S YS TE M S

The mangroves protocol harmonizes principles and sets modalities for managing mangrove ecosystems and establishes rules for environmental protection and conservation of mangroves within the Convention’s geographic scope.

INT EG R AT ED C OAS TAL ZO NE MANAGEMENT

The Integrated Coastal Zone Management Protocol promotes integrated planning and coordinated development of the coastal zone by including and maintaining insular belts and upstream river basins for the benefit of present and future generations.

These protocols represent effective tools that enable the Parties to the Convention, the 22 Atlantic Coastal States from West, Central and Southern Africa that have ratified and are bound to its objectives, to better plan and manage coastal zones and mangrove ecosystems for the well-being of their populations.

WA BiCC worked with the Abidjan Convention Secretariat to draft, ratify, and present the protocols at the 2017 Abidjan Convention Conference of Parties, held in Côte d’Ivoire. Country representatives debated the merits of the protocols and finally agreed upon and ratified the new protocols into the convention’s charter. The ratification of the protocols marked the first time all three African Atlanticfacing sub-regions agreed on new protocol instruments and bookend a decade-long process to revitalize the AbC as the center of Africa’s ocean debates.

In the ensuing years, WA BiCC and partners in Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire tested the protocols in targeted learning landscapes where, after generating data through biological studies and surveys with local communities, interventions and activities included the new protocols’ guiding principles.

“ USA I D c a m e a t th e p e r fe ct t i me and has be e n re al ly p ivo ta l in p u sh in g th e Co nve nt i on t o maxi mi ze our re so u rc e s a n d c ap a c itie s. T he re gi on and conse r vat i on wo r k n e e d m o re p ro je c ts l i ke WA Bi C C , w hi ch fo c u se s o n c o lla b o r a tio n a nd compl e me nt i ng e xi st i ng e f fo r ts r a th e r th a n sta r tin g from scrat ch or ope rat i ng in iso la tio n .”

Mr. Abou Bamba, Executive Secretary of the Abidjan Convention Secretariat

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I N S T I T U T I O N A L S T RENGTHENING: A B I DJ AN C O N V E N T I O N The Abidjan Convention is a 22-country regional organization, administered by the United Nations Environment Program, that works for the protection, management, and development of the marine and coastal environment along the Atlantic Coast of the West, Central, and Southern Africa region.

As part of WA BiCC’s goal to foster improved policies and stronger partnerships, the program partnered with the AbC to strengthen its organizational capacity. Initial assessments showed that the AbC was weakest in communication and dissemination and resource mobilization. AbC had never implemented a robust communications strategy and had no fundraising team or coordinated resource mobilization action plan.

The assessment also showed low scores in the areas of results and reach, which was due to the lack of a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system to track the progress of the organization’s workplan.

Based on these assessments WA BiCC worked with AbC to develop an Institutional Strengthening Plan to address weaknesses and serve as a road map and led to the following achievements: • Communications: Developed Communications Plan; recruited two communications staff and trained them on advocacy, photography, behavior change communication, and social media.

• Data and information management: Developed a document classification and archiving system and an online resource center to disseminate data and information related to marine and coastal environments.

• Resource mobilization: Mapped potential donors, organized donor roundtables, and implemented a resource mobilization strategy.

• Monitoring, evaluation Recruited a specialist, developed an M&E reporting system that produced the first-ever AbC M&E report.

• Human resource development: Increased the staffing of the program, assessed training needs, and implemented a new training program.

“USAID has helped to put the Abidjan Convention at the center of ocean debates in West, Central and Southern Africa. The AbC has raised more financial resources because of WA BICC’s involvement, which would not have been possible without reinforcing the institutional set up of the AbC.” Abou Bamba, Executive Secretary, AbC

AQ UATI C WI L D M E AT

In partnership with the AbC and major conservation stakeholders, WA BiCC facilitated the multi-stakeholder Abidjan Aquatic Wildlife Partnership to increase the awareness and action of governments, relevant industries, and local communities in West, Central, and Southern Africa, to slow and reverse the over-harvesting of aquatic coastal and marine species.

The main objective of the partnership is to safeguard healthy populations of aquatic endangered, threatened or protected species, referred to as aquatic wild meat and identify the root causes driving the trade, capture, and consumption of these species across Africa. The partnership’s strategy includes empowering local stakeholders, building local capacity, and advocating and lobbying for effective policies and complements the AU’s African Common Strategy on Combatting Illegal Trade in Wild Fauna and Flora.

ABOU BAMBA, SECRETARY OF THE ABIDJAN CONVENTION WITH USAID/WEST AFRICA MISSION DIRECTOR, DANIEL MOORE.

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P U T T I N G M A N G ROV ES ON THE AIRWAVES WA BiCC harnessed behavioral change communications to ensure key messages reached everybody living in coastal communities

Watasay Ston, WA BiCC’s radio drama series and callin show, focused on coastal resilience in Sierra Leone and aired on four radio stations in 2019.

Set in ‘GbangaTown’, a fictitious rural coastal community, the drama centers on the effects of climate change and erosion and how its well-educated leader, Chief Gbanga, decides to mitigate these impacts. Along the way, he encounters resistance from community members, and the Chief sets out to change the attitudes and practices of the people he is trying to protect.

Each 15-minute episode was followed by a 45-minute call-in segment facilitated by a trained moderator and accompanied by an expert guest to answer questions and clarify the issues covered in the drama.The 24-episode production and broadcasts were created in three local languages, Krio, Mende, and Temne, in order to reach the majority of the population and complemented the technical activities being implemented by WA BiCC in the landscape.

Posterior impact studies revealed that 17 of the 24 targeted coastal communities listened, and focus group discussions proved the radio drama was successful in informing and influencing coastal community members’ efforts to improve natural resource management, including the conservation of mangroves. In these focus groups, people who listened to the radio drama said the messages influenced them to start thinking about mangrove restoration and how they could contribute

by planting and selecting mangrove cuttings. Others said the radio drama had sparked discussions about the negative effects of cutting mangroves near communities, the dangers of flooding, and the construction of embankments to protect their communities from erosion. Listeners also said the radio drama influenced them to support community by-laws and regulations designed to minimize the destruction of mangroves.

WATAS AY S TO N: 202 0 E N C O RE

Recognizing the radio drama’s success, the UNDP, which is supporting Sierra Leone with a Coastal Risks Management Project, partnered with WA BiCC to fund and develop season two of the radio drama. An additional 24 episodes were broadcast between April 2020 and October 2020 in four local languages, Mende, Temne, Krio and Sherbro. Key staff from Sierra Leone’s Environment Protection Agency and the Ministry of Fisheries helped to facilitate season two pre-testing sessions where community stakeholders had a chance to critique respective languages and discuss content.

LEARNING FRO M C O M I C B O O K S

In addition to the radio drama, WA BiCC developed a comic book titled The Curse of the Sacred Mangroves to reach a younger audience, in French and English, with messaging that shows the importance of preserving plant and animal life in coastal ecosystems. In the Fresco landscape, WA BiCC’s partner created a variety of audiovisual products including documentary films and recorded radio programs and held awareness raising sessions directly with coastal communities.

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P R EPA R I N G R E S I L I E N T NATIONS FOR AN UNCERTAIN FU T U R E Over the next five years, West African governments will continue to integrate coastal resilience activities into their National Adaptation Plans.

In the case of Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, the actions carried out in WA BiCC learning landscapes have provided policy makers with evidence-based lessons that can foster each country’s efforts to translate alarming climate data into actionable development plans. Finally, WA BiCC’s work that has successfully helped coastal communities recognize the link between a degraded environment and the destruction of a changing climate will forever alter the way communities perceives coastal ecosystems.

• Data as a catalyst for collaboration. The assessment of socioeconomic and ecosystem vulnerabilities in coastal landscapes added value to the policy discussion by providing credible evidence of the risks and key issues on the ground, which existing policies did not offer, and coalesced stakeholders around a common understanding of issues to foster collaboration.

• Effective coordination requires joint planning. When the Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) was developed in Sierra Leone, at least three government agencies had prominent roles overseeing climate change efforts. The CCAP helped to streamline adaptation planning by convening stakeholders to create an integrated, multistakeholder plan to counteract evidence-based threats facing coastal communities.

• Effective climate change governance requires institutional capacity.

Government agencies are underbudgeted or understaffed, and implementation of plans related to climate change is slow. Many agencies simply lack the capacity to operationalize climate change action. Engaging government partners through stakeholder workshops and integrating them into local level landscapes helps motivate them to deliver on commitments.

• Responding to the complex geographies with integrated solutions. The interconnectedness of terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems requires an integrated approach that take into account the interests of all user groups of the natural environment as well as upstream and downstream interactions between ecosystems.

• Continual stakeholder engagement is key. Early, iterative, and strategic involvement of a cross-section of local, national and regional stakeholders in developing the CCAP was instrumental in fostering ownership. The broad participation in the development and validation process contributed to the plan’s adoption and integration into national strategic and policy frameworks.

• Livelihood programs can provide sustainable opportunities for community development. Providing these opportunities with a resilient development strategy that delivers capacity-building sessions on associative governance ensures communities follow good governance principles and maintain strong local leadership.

To avoid false expectations created by confusion between microprojects and humanitarian support, future initiatives should be designed with an emphasis on awareness-raising and support for ‘climate smart’ livelihoods.

“T he de st ruct i on of we t l ands and ot he r e col ogi cal ly se nsi t i ve are as cannot be al l owe d t o cont i nue unabat e d.

T he fi ght t o sust ai nably manage t he count r y’s we t l ands i s not j ust one man’s fi ght .”

Foday Moriba Jaward, Minister of the Environment, Sierra Leone

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Component III

Deforestation and biodiversity loss GUINEA

THE B ATTLE FOR THE LAST TRACTS OF WEST AFRIC AN FOREST

SIERRA LEONE

Gola Situated just north of the equator, the Upper Guinean forests of West Africa were once R a i n fo r e s t an impenetrable wall of green that stretched from Guinea to Togo. Before the onset of NP colonialization, industrialization, and West Africa’s rapid population growth, the area of the original dense forests was estimated at 680,000 square km, or roughly the size of Texas. By 1975, over 80% of these primary forests had disappeared, and another 10% disappeared over the subsequent 40 years.

In recent history, large swaths of tropical forest have been affected by mining, industrial scale rubber and oil palm plantations, unregulated and illegal logging, slash-and-burn agriculture, and population pressures. Today, approximately 70,000 square km of dense forest cover remains, and just 45% of that is protected inside parks and natural reserves.

As these forests are depleted, the unique biodiversity within faces unprecedented risks of extermination that are exacerbated by weak governance and law enforcement, inadequate support for conservation, and lack of awareness of the value of these landscapes. Beyond deforestation and environmental degradation, these ecosystems face pressures from indirect threats like widespread poverty, climate change, human migration and urbanization, political instability, unprotected borders, outdated policies, and a lack of regional conservation planning.

These forests are widely recognized as regional and global hotspots containing impressive levels of biodiversity and endemism. The diversity of mammals is exceptional, with nearly a quarter of those that are native to continental Africa represented, and 60 that are endemic to West Africa. The forests are a top priority for primate conservation where five species are critically endangered, and another 21 are endangered. In other fields of study, such as herpetology, the knowledge is still regarded as inadequate.

Wonegizi PPA

Half of the remaining Upper Guinean dense forest is located in Liberia, which is believed to be the only country in West Africa that was once entirely covered with rain forests. Guinea contains 6%; Sierra Leone 4%; and Côte d’Ivoire 21%. National Parks, protected areas, and forest reserves represent the best oppor tunity to protect the forest that is left, but require increased investment, improved management, effective community par tnerships and rangers who can protect them.

Ziama

R e s e r ve

Wolegizi PPA

Gola NP

LIBERIA

COTE D’ IVOIRE

Sapo NP

Taï Grebo-Krahn

NP

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NP

WEST AFRIC A’S BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT

785+

species of birds

9,000+

species of plants

200+

reptile species

225+

amphibian species

400+

mammal species

P U T T I N G T H E R I G H T TOOLS IN THE RIGHT H A N DS C R E AT E S S U S TAINABLE IMPACTS Evidence shows that managing and maintaining a sustainable forest landscape cannot be successful without first addressing illegal and unsustainable activities and second, engaging communities who have used the forest for generations. WA BiCC and its partners employed a collaborative strategy that piloted and promoted effective practices in the remaining Upper Guinean Forests. Implementation centered on three major transboundary learning landscapes in four countries and included innovative, community-adapted land use planning and sustainable livelihoods activities. The program tested novel approaches to address biodiversity loss and reduce carbon emissions by building partnership with communities, strengthening law enforcement, and supporting management planning. Finally,WA BiCC strengthened the institutional capacity of the Mano River Union countries to pilot co-management schemes aimed at improving the administration of transboundary forest landscapes.

M A J O R OB J ECT IV ES 34

Facilitate transboundary management agreements between governments

Conduct conservation and biomonitoring in transboundary forests

Promote conservation and sustainable agroforestry practices within forests communities

Improve policy and enabling environment for forest and biodiversity conservation

Develop and implement strategies to protect threatened species

55

$30.3M

11,262

AC HI E V E M E N T S BY T H E NUM BERS

10,445

People trained on sustainable landscapes

176

Institutions with improved capacity to address sustainable landscape issues

laws and policies, regulations addressing sustainable landscapes

Mobilized for sustainable landscapes activities

People who received livelihood cobenefits, monetary or non-monetary

FOREST ELEPHANTS ARE ESSENTIAL FOR THE GERMINATION OF MANY RAIN FOREST TREES WITH SEEDS THAT ONLY GERMINATE AFTER PASSING THROUGH THE ELEPHANT’S DIGESTIVE TRACT.

M O R E I N C O M M O N THAN JUST AN INTERNATIO NAL BO RD E R WA BiCC worked with grantee Flora and Fauna International to promote innovative collaborative management of the ZiamaWonegizi-Wologizi (ZWW) Transboundary Forest Landscape between Liberia and Guinea.

The Ziama-Wonegizi-Wologizi landscape is home to large, isolated blocks of relic forests teeming with biodiversity, including the critically endangered Western chimpanzee and vulnerable African elephant, for whom the ZWW represents one of the last intact habitats in West Africa. ZWW is home to 8 species of primates and threatened by forest degradation and habitat loss due to encroaching agriculture.

Subsistence farmers face poverty and food insecurity while human-wildlife conflict and the threat of zoonotic disease put pressure on the landscape.

Liberia and Guinea have collaborated on natural resources management, but both countries face practical challenges including language barriers and differing government priorities. Through its grant FFI implemented a comprehensive package of initiatives, ranging from scientific surveys to community development and capacity building.

FFI succeeded in strengthening forest conservation and protection of biodiversity, ensuring connectivity between sites and enhancing forest governance, and improving the livelihoods of communities living in the landscape.

• Improved biomonitoring and law enforcement: Improved ecological sampling, survey camera trap methodology, basic data collection, ArcGIS, SMART tool application, participatory market system development, and wildlife law training and law enforcement.

• Biodiversity research: Executed 10 rapid high conservation value biodiversity assessments, and the first-ever camera trap survey in Wologizi.

ZIAMA-WONEGIZI-WOLOGIZI TRANSBOUNDARY FOREST LANDSCAPE

3158 km2 Liberia Guinea

Area protected

Endangered Species

M A J O R AC HIEV EM EN T S

• Transboundary agreement: Developed and validated jointmanagement agreement between Guinea and Liberia and established the ZWW Transboundary Landscape Steering Committee.

• Sustainable livelihoods: Established three farmer field schools in Ziama with 75 direct and 800 indirect beneficiaries.

western chimpanzee

giant ground pangolin

forest elephant

king leopard

pygmy hippo

Fl ora & F auna Internati o n al’s c on ser v at ion approa ch bui l ds o n bi o di ver sit y lear n in g to strengthen forest and b iodiver sit y protecti on, enhace fo res t gover n an c e , and pro mote sustai na bl e livelih oods for communi ti es l i vi ng i n the lan dsc ap e .

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R EADI N G T H E F O R E ST Biodiversity assessments are akin to the building blocks of conservation. For years, the ZWW forests did not receive the attention they need in order to understand the breadth of life under their rich, green canopy. To gauge the health of ZWW’s biodiversity and better understand what species this tropical forest is harboring, FFI carried out 10 rapid biodiversity assessments to provide what is known in the trade as a baseline inventory, or a comprehensive species list of various plant and animal categories. A selection of specialists in lepidoptery, ornithology, herpetology, mammalogy and botany swept the forest for signs of familiar, obscure, and new life forms that fall within their areas of expertise. Field teams including rangers from Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority and Guinea’s Centre Forestier de N’Zérékoré, external consultants, and communities on both sides of the border worked together to gather vital data on the biological riches and conservation value of the forest ecosystem.

TI P P I N G THE S C AL E S

Preliminary results show at least 50 amphibian and 11 reptile species in Ziama, and 33 amphibian and 11 reptile species in Wologizi. The combined list included three amphibian and three reptile species that warrant urgent conservation attention according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Several of the frogs captured by the survey teams have yet to be formally identified, but it is possible that they may turn out to be entirely new

to science. Two reptilian rarities were recorded on the Liberian side of the border in Wologizi: the dwarf crocodile and the Home’s hinge-back tortoise.

Among the threatened reptile species is the Western gecko, which has been found in five separate mountain environments across West Africa, including Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, living in sites that are threatened by mining and deforestation.

F LY, F LY B U TT ER FLY

A butterfly survey, for which entomologists spent 23 subspecies is probably endemic to Ziama and/or maybe days in the field, proved that the Ziama Massif, which to other forest areas in Guinea and possibly in Liberia, is a UNESCO Man and Biosphere (MAB) reserve, but was found only at the single locality in an upland represents one of the most important sites for the swamp above Sérédou. conservation of butterfly fauna in the The most important discovery was a Butter flies can region.Thanks to the assessment of macrosmall lycænid butterfly (Neurellipes helpsi) ind icate the health and microhabitats, biologists and policy previously known only from a single of the b r oad er ecosystem . makers can confirm that the site should location in Ghana.The upland swamp forest Par ticular ly in be a high conservation priority and that where it was found is under immediate the context of a butterflies deserve to be its own target threat from drainage and conversion to changing clim ate , conservation group. agriculture. The discovery highlights the they ser ve as the A total of 428 species were recorded insect eq uivalent of urgent need to protect this specialist the canar y in the which, at the end of the dry season, is habitat and other wetlands within Ziama. coalm ine . a very high number. Numerous Upper Through data collected from conservation Guinean endemics, two new species, six Liberian subpartners, surveyors determined there are more than region endemics, three restricted-range species and 450 species of butterflies recorded in Wonegizi and two new subspecies were recorded. One undescribed Wologizi.

“As expected from its location, size and geography, Ziama hosts an incredibly rich butterfly fauna, including many Upper Guinea forest endemics.

Over 400 species at the end of the dr y season is a ver y high number.

Many species are usually absent or scarce at this time of year. It is almost certain that subsequent visits in a different season would reveal even greater diversity.”

Szabolcs Sáfián, entomologist in Ziama

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TA K I N G F L I G H T

Armed with mist nets, binoculars, and other essential tools of the endangered Timneh parrot (Psittacus timneh). Out of the seven trade, ornithologists conducted a bird survey on both sides of threatened species recorded, the Yellow-casqued hornbill, Whitethe Liberian-Guinean border. Surveyors walked line transects in breasted guineafowl and Yellow-bearded greenbul were recorded morning and afternoon hours to record bird in both Wologizi and Ziama; the green-tailed “ T her e is a need for species, with two teams working concurrently ongoing avian sur veys w ithin bristlebill was recorded only in Ziama; and the to complete sixteen transects per day. The this land scap e , in or d er to White-backed vulture, Rufous fishing owl and d ocum ent those sp ecies team faced a number of challenges including that this r ap id sur vey m ay Timneh parrot were recorded only in Wologizi. several vehicle breakdowns.

Much more alarmingly, the total number of have m issed d ue to tim e constr aints and – going A total of 289 individual birds were recorded forest specialist species sighted across the for w ar d – to und er stand during the survey (158 in the Wologizi and landscape totaled 164, which is exactly half of the over all tr end s.”

131 in the Ziama MAB), comprising 205 the total biome-restricted species identified in Talatu Te n de , wildlife an d mo le cu lar bio lo gist species in 47 families. Seven species of global a 2001 survey in Wologizi and Ziama. Forest conservation concern were recorded, including the critically specialist bird species are especially vulnerable to the loss of endangered white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus) and the forest cover.

FU RRY FRI E N D S

A total of 15 species of rodents, 8 species of shrew, 1 otter shrew and 27 species of bats were captured in the small mammal survey. One of the rodents (Colomys goslingi) is recorded for the first time from the Upper Guinea forest zone and may represent a new species while at least one shrew species has yet to be identified. Preliminary results suggest that one of the bats is almost certainly a new species to science, and a second bat may also be new to science. ZWW has a high diversity of rodent, shrew and bat species, and is considered a critical area for small mammals of the Upper Guinea forests due to the high number of endemics in the region and the few that are threatened.

Thanks to the survey, the presence of the semi-aquatic Nimba otter shrew at Wologizi was confirmed. The Nimba otter shrew is categorized as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and is listed in the top 100 Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species.

The White-backed vulture , like other vultures, has declined by over 90% in West Africa in the last 50 years and is now perilously close to extinction.

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H OW FO R E S T S A N D WILDLIFE BENEFIT FROM TR ANS BO U NDARY CO O PE R AT IO N A Transboundary Bilateral Framework Agreement marks the first step to formalize the commitment of Guinea and Liberia to cooperate towards sustainable management and effective conservation of the ZWW landscape and its natural resources.

WA BiCC and partners organized technical working groups and meetings between Guinea’s Ministère de l’Environnement, des Eaux et des Forêts and Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority to develop a roadmap and deliver on the development and validation of a joint-management agreement between Guinea and Liberia. As a next step, the two governments validated an operational Memorandum of Understanding, which details how they will work together on the ground to implement transboundary management activities, such as joint patrols, information sharing, and raising awareness in forest communities. Finally, they established the ZWW Transboundary Steering Committee as a mechanism to guide and monitor transboundary management of the ZWW landscape.

E L E P H A N T S ON A JOUR N EY

After leaving the relative safety of their long-term residence in Guinea’s Ziama Massif, two African forest elephants crossed the border into

Liberia leaving a trail of astonished onlookers in their wake. It appears the overlanding pachyderms continued acrossLiberia to the forests of Nimba County.

Once Ziama forest rangers were alerted that the elephants had crossed the border, communication was triangulated through Guinea’s Ministry of Environment, who then informed their Liberian counterparts. Together, park rangers on both sides of the border mobilized to track the elephants, and keep them from harm.

Along the way, the elephants approached rural villages and damaged community crops, typical behavior that often ends with a dead elephant.

However, thanks to monitoring and awareness raising efforts, the elephants were steered back into the forest.

Their international journey perfectly illustrates how the West African forest elephant’s habitat is shrinking, and the remaining elephants are now obliged to move through a mosaic of land-use types, including forest fragments and agriculture fields in order to reach forests further afield.

Transboundary initiatives like the ZWW bilateral agreement are established to sensitize people living near forests about protecting wildlife and to enable partnerships and dialogue between government agencies tasked with protecting forests, animals, and people.

K E E P I N G AN E YE O N BI O D I V E R SI T Y

To complement rapid biodiversity assessments, local conservation-focused teams, including park guards, play an important role in consolidating information about the wildlife living in protected areas. Throughout the ZWW landscape, biomonitoring protocols were developed and training built the capacity of rangers and conservation stakeholders in camera trap methodology and ecological sampling, including a pygmy hippo survey methodology and environmental DNA (eDNA) methods.

In Wonegizi, regular biomonitoring and law enforcement procedures were established to continue observations, such as camera trapping and elephant monitoring. In Ziama, guards recorded signs of the pygmy hippopotamus for the first time ever in 2019. Biomonitoring efforts are critical to give those in the conservation space a better understanding of the diversity and behavior of wildlife, especially of those animals most threatened by human activities like hunting, poaching, and mining.

G AZ E TTI N G WO N E GI Z I F O R P ROT E CT I O N

In Wonegizi, conservation teams conducted a total of 250 days of biomonitoring over nine months, or 1,483 days of surveys.They identified 20 species including six globally threatened species.These efforts to document biodiversity are critical to the gazettement of the Wonegizi Proposed Protected Area. For this, FFI worked with the Liberian government and local communities to develop a gazettement protocol, the first phase of creating a sustainable multi-use reserve.

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R EDEFI N I N G T H E L AW OF THE JUNGLE WA BiCC worked with grantees Flora and Fauna International (FFI) and the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation (WCF) to promote innovative collaborative management of the Taï-Grebo-Krahn-Sapo (TGKS) Transboundary Forest Landscape between Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire.

The TGKS Transboundary Forest Landscape faces mounting pressure from host of threats including large and small-scale agriculture, unregulated illegal mining, and illegal timber and non-timber harvesting. The remaining habitat and biodiversity is vulnerable due to an increasingly fragmented environment and the cutting off of critical migratory corridors. At the same time, new and old forest conservation policies have become a flash point for local communities who depend on the forest for their livelihoods. In the face of these challenges, stakeholders are pushing for the adoption of more collaborative park management, new corridors of protected forest, improved law enforcement, and more sustainable livelihoods options for the surrounding communities.

MAJO R AC HIEVEMENT S

• Facilitated livelihood projects for 6,110 people participating in 16 community livelihood projects, including permaculture, beekeeping, eco-tourism, and avi-tourism.

• Established the transboundary law enforcement committee as a platform for regular and sustainable transboundary dialogues on forest conservation issues, and an action plan to prioritize activities.

• Empowered community forest conservation by establishing and building the capacity of six teams of ‘ecoguards’, comprised of 30 community members and five government representatives.

A WEST AFRICAN PYGMY HIPPOPOTAMUS IN CAPTIVITY IN A ZOO IN THAILAND.

THE TAÏ-GREBO-KRAHN-SAPO (TGKS) TRANSBOUNDARY FOREST LANDSCAPE

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7,900 km2

Liberia Côte d’Ivoire

Area protected

Endangered Species

Through transboundary collaboration, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire can address the root causes of illegal trafficking, better understand ecological threats, and find solutions to minimize the impact of biodiversity loss.

western chimpanzee

forest elephant

Liberian mongoose

Upper Guinea red colobus

pygmy hippo

Zebra duiker

A WESTERN RED COLOBUS MONKEY STUDY IN TAÏ NATIONAL PARK IN COTE D’IVOIRE REVEALED AN AVERAGE OF 53 INDIVIDUALS PER GROUP.

F O R ES T L A N D S C A P E S RELY ON COMMUNITIES The active involvement of local communities living around rich habitats is vital to ensure sustainable and effective management of natural resources. Extreme poverty, unemployment, and food insecurity make it very difficult to stem illegal activities in and around protected areas with only law enforcement, which is often under resourced. WA BiCC partners worked with communities living in the TGKS landscape on a variety of projects aimed at enhancing livelihood options and moving people away from unsustainable activities that threaten forests and biodiversity.

WA BiCC grantees implemented 15 community-based income generating activities in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia,including conservation-friendly permaculture, frozen food storage, piggeries, poultry, cassava farming, and projects focusing in makoré and cocoa derived products. One farmer field-school was built in Taï to spread new agriculture skills and knowledge throughout the community and empower farmers to create their own vegetable gardens.

A N S W E R W IT H H ON EY

Beekeeping has raised incomes and hopes throughout Liberia while providing a sustainable agro-forestry activity that can flourish without having to clear any forest. But honey production has its on set of challenges: honeybees are very sensitive to environmental changes including climate change. Variations in average temperatures and in the duration and intensity of the rainy season affect bee productivity.

Universal Outreach Foundation (UOF), owner of the Liberia Pure Honey brand, partnered with WA BiCC grantees and delivered a package of beekeeping training and materials to 223 community members in 23 communities around the landscape. Though it takes an average of three years to reach a steady income, the activity involved the construction of over 420 beehives and secondyear harvests totaled over eight gallons of honey worth $130 USD.

ON THE E C O - TRAI L

WA BiCC grantee Wild Chimpanzee Foundation enhanced theTaï Ecotourism enterprise, which offers hiking and animal treks in Côte d’Ivoire’s Tai National Park, emphasizing the park’s birds, chimpanzees and other primates. WCF supported the operator’s public relations strategy by hiring a communications expert, revamping its website, and supporting its participation in a tourism trade show in France.The operator’s staff and eco-guides received specialized training, and reported increased visitation and revenue of more than 200%, earning more than $65,000 over the three years of grant support.The project

directly employs 12 people and an additional 15 people from traditional villages benefit from the project.

Grantees also carried out a bird-watching feasibility study for Liberia’s Sapo National Park based on the nearly 100 bird species recorded in the corridor. The study outlines how income can be generated through fees and guiding services aimed at empowering local communities to become stewards of their forest. The study also came with a training manual for future birding guides and recommendations for setting up a pilot project.

The critically endangered western chimpanzees living in the Tai National Park use more than 26 tools and are known for their nut cracking skills. They hunt as a team, and have adopted orphans who have lost their mothers.

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K N OW I N G T H E L AW Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia made history by joining forces to create the Transboundary Law Enforcement Committee (TLETC) to support effective management of the Tai-Grebo-Krahn-Sapo forest landscape.

Over the last 20 years, these isolated forests have become staging grounds for illegal activity, creating risks for visitors and preventing governments from carrying out their land management duties. Illegal hunting, mining, and deforestation are among the many challenges that have menaced the forests.Transboundary cooperation is a solid step forward, and the TLETC law enforcement committee serves as a platform for continuous dialogue around forest conservation and management issues.

This transboundary collaboration, which began in 2018, takes into account the interests of forest-edge communities and other relevant stakeholder groups when it comes to policies and procedures that protect the forests straddling the countries’ borders. As part of the committee’s work plan, the two governments reviewed existing legislation on natural resource management and trade, identified shared environmental conservation issues, and defined the direction and function of the committee.

The committee has made recommendations to raise awareness about farming immigrants occupying land in both countries to establish cocoa farms and illegal mining particularly in Liberia.

Some of these mining operations employ toxic mercury, putting downstream water supplies, wildlife, and natural resources at serious risk. Another recommendation from the committee was the implementation of joint security patrols, which is based on information gathered by community Ecoguards (next page). In 2020, transboundary counterparts carried out the first-ever joint patrol, breaking up several illegal camps and arresting illegal miners.

S E N D I N G A M E SSAGE

“ T hanks to im p r oved netwo r king, I can b e her e in Monr ovia and still call o n the r egional p o lice co m m and er and p r o secutor s in the southeast counties of S ino e , G r and G ed eh, and R iver G ee , and count on their sup p or t to fight w ild life cr im e .

T his w as not hap p ening b efo r e Abednego Gbarway, FDA Wildlife Manager.

Thanks to the work coordinated by the Transboundary Law Enforcement Committee (TLETC), the governments of Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire carried out the first ever arrests and convictions for illegal poaching and wildlife trafficking. In August 2019, poachers on the Liberian side were arrested for illegal possession and trade of a baby chimpanzee and for hunting and killing a Pygmy hippopotamus.

The presiding judge at the Zwedru Magisterial Court, Grand Gedeh county, is a member of the TLETC, and handed down three and one month jail sentences, respectively. Although the punishments seem light, the convictions represent the first time anybody in the region has ever been punished for these types of crimes.

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O N E F O OT I N T H E C OMMUNITY, ONE IN THE FO R E ST the same community members with park rangers, is proving that those who depend on the forest are capable of protecting it. Ecoguards raise awareness, collect data on biodiversity threats, and help to Felicia Kyne may not look like a superhero. She change the behaviors of those who are hunting, doesn’t wear a cape or fly through the air, but the mining or otherwise unsustainably exploiting forest soft-spoken 23-year-old woman from a remote resources. As forest advocates, ecoguards are also village in Liberia is on the frontlines of a global battle breaking gender stereotypes by hiring women; to preserve biodiversity. Felicia is a community one out of three ecoguards is a ecoguard in Liberia’s Grebo“The job as an woman. Since patrol teams are Krahn National Park (GKNP), e coguard has give n unarmed, they must carry out one of three parks that make up me a chance as a their delicate mission through a transboundary wildlife corridor wom an to do things persuasion. Felicia says women between Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire. with me n that other are the masters of persuasion and This global biodiversity hotspot wom en are n’t us ually she aspires for a future position was officially protected in 2017 allowed to do. I can as park ranger with Liberia’s after years of delicate negotiations do the s ame wor k Forestry Development Authority. between local communities, the the y do. I car r y the government and conservation s am e load on my back stakeholders. in the bus h. Anything FRO M HU N TE R TO E C O G UARD That is where Felicia makes her After Liberia’s civil war, Alphonso the y can do, I can entrance. The idea of community Zarley had little recourse to challe nge it. ecoguards was born of the support his family beyond hunting.

Felicia Kyne, Ecoguard, Liberia recognition that communities Zarley has killed hundreds, maybe need to be considered real par tners in conservation. thousands of Black duikers, monkeys, forest buffalo, When people benefit, biodiversity benefits. The and the endangered Pygmy hippos. Over the last 15 lack of comprehensive law enforcement and years, subsistence hunting has become difficult as inefficient policing have led to conflict among more pressure is exerted on the forest by industrial forest dwelling communities, resulting in negative agriculture, mining, and illegal logging. Zarley has impacts on people and biodiversity. WA BiCC’s witnessed the forest’s decline and decided to do community ecoguard approach, which par tners something about it. He became a community ecoguard.

Community ecoguards raise awareness and create an enabling environment for enforcement.

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I n b o th co untr ies, WA BiCC gr antees tr ained 6 team s o f com munity eco guar d s co m p r ised o f 3 0 co m munity m em b er s. T he team s p atr olled an estim ated 1 1 5 ,0 0 0 hectar es o f tr ansb o und ar y for est, r aised conser vation aw ar eness, and wo r ked w ith I voir ian author ities to r elo cate 3 ,0 0 0 p eo p le o ut o f the Cavally Classified For est.

T H E R EBI RT H O F T H E GOLA PEACE PARK WA BiCC worked with grantee Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to promote innovative collaborative management of the Gola Forest Peace Park Transboundary Forest Landscape between Liberia and Sierra Leone.

In 2009, the presidents of Liberia and of Sierra Leone joined efforts to create the Gola Forest Peace Park, the region’s first transboundary protected area.The Gola Rainforest is considered a biodiversity hotspot for all types of animals, including birds. The expansion of agriculture, mining, and logging pose serious threats to the landscape, as does the population of more than 140,000 people living on the periphery of the protected areas. RSPB empowered local communities to establish community managed forests and improve their livelihoods while working with governments to create an enabling environment for improved connectivity and transboundary cooperation.

M A J O R AC HIEV EMENT S

• Revised Transboundary Management Agreement signed by the governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia, leading to the establishment of the Gola Forest Bilateral Coordination Committee with new terms of reference, working groups, and action plans.

• Facilitated livelihood projects for 4,870 people on sustainable agriculture, rainforestfriendly cocoa, lowland rice, beekeeping, groundnut, and vegetable production.

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THE GOLA FOREST TRANSBOUNDARY LANDSCAPE

3,500 km2

Liberia Sierra Leone

Area protected

Endangered Species

forest elephant

Upper Guinea red colobus

pygmy hippo

White-necked Picathartes

Zebra duiker

Rufous fishing owl

Western chimpanzee

Gola Malimbe

The transboundar y Gola landscape is a critical wildlife corridor and home to 60 species of plants and animals classified as threatened or endangered and over 330 bird species, 14 of which are on the verge of extinction.

S H A R I N G T H E R E S P ONSIBILITY AND B ENEFI T S O F F O R E S T MANAGEMENT Building on the governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia’s 2009 commitment to protect the Gola Transboundary Forest Landscape, officials established the Gola Forest Bilateral Coordination Committee to reactivate decade-old commitments to work together and protect the Gola Forest ecosystem.

WA BiCC played ally to both countries and supported the drafting of the committee’s first work plan. Under the renewed commitments, Sierra Leone and Liberia agree to share management duties of the forest landscape, which includes joint patrols and information sharing on biomonitoring and forest encroachment. A key focus of both governments is to collaborate and include various stakeholders when it comes to supporting forest-edge communities and finding sustainable means to improve their livelihood without degrading forest resources or burdening its animal and plant life. Chief signatories of the agreement included Liberia’s Foreign Minister and Sierra Leone’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture in addition to the Secretary-General of the Mano River Union and several Paramount Chiefs representing communities from Gola Rainforest National Park in Sierra Leone.

“What we ar e w itnessing now is about b alancing. We have to pres er ve the G o la Fo r est, we have to pres er ve w ild life , but tho se w ho live in the com munities ar o und the for est, their lives also have to be impr oved . T hey know all the anim als, tr ees, and r iver s in the fore s t. T hey ar e the ow ner s of the fore s t, and we must char ge them with the r esp onsib ility to ensur e the ir com munities co ntinue to prote ct the fo r ests.”

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Gbehzohngar Findley, Foreign Minister of Liberia

THE WHITE-NECKED ROCKFOWL IS NATIVE TO THE HIGHER-ALTITUDE FORESTED AREAS OF WEST AFRICA AND IS AMONG THE TOP FIVE FAVORITE AFRICAN BIRDS FOR BIRDERS.

S U S TA I N A B L E FA R M E RS MAKE GOOD NEIGHBO R S WA BiCC grantee RSPB worked with the Gola Forest communities on both sides of the border to improve livelihood options that balance forest conservation with the wellbeing of forest-edge communities.

Over the past decade, half of the 350,000 ha of the Gola Transboundary Forest Landscape were nominally protected under national park status in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In the face of the accompanying regulations, communities were left wondering what they would do for a living.These communities depend on the forests for food, fuel, and income, and viewed a national park more as a lost resource than a mechanism of protection.

By the same token, many of the same people within these communities were responsible for illegal activities like mining, hunting, clear-cutting for farming, and logging.

Meanwhile, a disappearing forest has put stress on other resources, like the availability of quality drinking water.

Under WA BiCC, activities were focused on improving farming practices of cocoa, rice, and groundnut farmers, and supporting new beekeeping producers from more than a dozen communities in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

These efforts trained a total of 4,871 people, the majority of whom are in Sierra Leone, and will indirectly help over 26,000 people living near the forest.

For Gola’s cocoa producers, the program introduced farmer field schools that provided hands-on training for nine months. The school introduced shade-tolerant cocoa varieties and best practices in harvesting and postharvest handling. Farmers are expected to discontinue slash-and-burn practices, while also increasing yields.

Peanut farmers received improved hybrid seeds, which

mature quicker than traditional peanut plants and are more resistant to diseases. Farmers were also trained on best agriculture practices, such as field preparation and soil health. Thanks to WA BiCC activities, farmers have increased their awareness of farming as a business, making their time worth more money. Liberian farmers in the Sokpa communities created the Sokpa Mulitpurpose Farmer Association, which will give them a better opportunity to connect with traders.

Forest rice farmers often depend on upland rice farming practices, which lead to soil erosion and poor soil health. Farmers know that lowland rice farming is more profitable, but it requires large amounts of labor, tools, and commitment. The program selected several lowland rice farming sites and supported farmers with improved seeds, tools, and technical assistance. With the project’s assistance, farmers can harvest year round, increase yields, and take rice to market instead of farming only

for subsistence. Most importantly, these farmers will no longer practice dry land rice farming.

Livelihood activities also worked with communities to establish over 60 village savings and loan associations directly benefitting the families of more than 1,000 people. The program tested a poultry rearing project, crafts made from forest plants, and supported an eco tourism initiative to establish an eco-lodge, build hiking trails, and train guides.

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“This training is the first of its kind in the histor y of our community. My father died five years ago and left us his cocoa farm behind. But we neglected it and ever y year, when we har vested our cocoa farm, we lost plenty of money. Now, I know how to prune and treat diseases on my cocoa.”

Moses Dugba, cocoa farmer, Kawelahun community, Sierra Leone

I N S T I T U T I O N A L S T RENGTHENING: T H E M A N O R I V E R U NION The Mano River Union (MRU) is an intergovernmental institution comprising Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire that aims to strengthen the capacity of Member States to integrate their economies and coordinate development programs in the areas of peace building.

MRU’s Strategic Plan was revised with WA BiCC support and along with its initial security and economic development mandates now includes a first-of-its-kind natural resource management component.The plan advances regional action in biodiversity protection, climate change adaptation, and natural resource management essentially recognizing the critical importance of the subregion’s rich natural heritage for the first time.

WA BiCC partnered with MRU, one of its three core regional partners, to strengthen its technical and organizational capacity to achieve its goals. An initial assessment indicated low organizational capacity in monitoring, evaluation, and learning; technical skills; and communication and dissemination. For instance, MRU did not have a monitoring and evaluation or communications plan, and staff did not have technical skills or experience in natural resource management policy.

Based on the initial assessment, WA BiCC helped the MRU to develop a quiver of institutional strengthening tools and instruments, including a the five-year Strategic Plan and a technical training plan, a communications strategy, a human resource development policy, a performance management system, a resource mobilization strategy, and a sub-regional strategy for National Adaptation Plan development.

WA BiCC also helped MRU to operationalize the monitoring and evaluation system; train staff in collecting and using climate, biological monitoring, and vulnerability assessment data.

By 2021, WA BiCC and MRU achieved the following:

“The new strategic plan gives the MRU specific target and makes the Secretariat more predictable, effective and efficient.”

Ambassador Medina Wesseh, Secretary General of the Mano River Union MRU

• Strategic planning: Supported revision and validation

of 2020-2025 Strategic Plan and Action Plan, including regional agendas and component on emergent natural resource management issues.

• Work planning and budgeting: Adopted an operational plan and regular reviews of annual workplans and budgets. Produced quarterly progress reports and reviewed cost efficiency of operations.

• Improved accounting: Adopted International Public Sector Accounting Standards for auditing, procurement, and accounting, which increases transparency and accountability for donor funds and enhances confidence in MRU. • Monitoring and evaluation: Documented success and challenges arising from programs and services, especially in management of cross-border units and in the peace and security sector.

• Data collection: The MRU staff now collects and uses climate, biomonitoring, and vulnerability data and can identify relevent stakeholders for partnerships.

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M RU FI G HTS TRAFFI C K I N G

WA BiCC, in partnership with the British military’s International Security Advisory Team (ISAT), facilitated an international workshop that resulted in a commitment by the four MRU Member States to fight illegal wildlife trafficking by addressing issues such as legislation, border security and training for those on the frontlines. The resulting “Freetown Declaration” was signed in 2019.

T H E F O R E S T I S A S TAGE WA BiCC led a variety of behavioral change communications strategies such as radio dramas, comic books, sporting events, and community theatre to transmit key messages to forest communities D E F OR E S TATION IN T H R EE ACT S

With partners Eddie Theatre Productions and Alma Productions,WA BiCC grantee WCF developed and presented theatrical plays about the creation of the Grebo Krahn National Park (GKNP) and the protection of Sapo National Park. The plays, entitled Wahala for Grebo-Krahn and Let’s Find Common Ground for Sapo National Park, were developed with information from the target communities, and actors were casted and rehearsed in Monrovia. In total, the conservation-themed theatre troupe conducted three tours totaling 56 performances in 54 communities located in and around the protected areas. An estimated 13,000 people attended and viewed the plays. Following the success, Eddie Theatre produced a radio recording of the GKNP play. An impact study showed that the plays raised the enthusiasm of its spectators who manifested their appreciation for educational messaging.

S AS RAK U : THE S E C R E T W I T H I N

This story of Sasraku provides readers with a glimpse of how forest loss can affect all living things that exist in and around them.The story also shows how everyone has a role to play in fighting illegal human activities in the forest.

The comic book, available in English and French, was distributed throughout West Africa to inspire West African youth to become conservation leaders.

FO RE S T B L E S S I N G S

This 24-episode radio drama series produced by WA BiCC was broadcast in the four Mano River Union countries to raise awareness about issues of deforestation, forest degradation, and biodiversity loss that affect the transboundary forest landscapes targeted by the WA BiCC. The drama aimed to educate and entertain its listeners through stories about a fictional cross-border community called Mano N’Zela, located at the edge of a national park. The series used colorful characters, including a paramount chief, hunters, artisanal miners, loggers, bushmeat sellers, and farmers, to help listeners understand challenges and the importance of forest conservation.

Each one-hour episode, produced in seven languages, was broadcast over a three-month period in 2020, and included a 15-minute radio drama and a 45-minute call-in show with an expert answering questions posed by callers. The call-in segments on the eight radio stations broadcasting the series generated over 750 calls with questions about hunting, farming, human-wildlife conflict, and mining.

G O O O O O OAL ! ! !

In the ZWW landscape, WA BiCC partners used football matches to raise awareness about forest ecology and the threatened forest elephant.

In each match, a team of Ziama park rangers, known as Les Elephants de Ziama, faced off against community teams. Before and after each match, stakeholders delivered environmental education. For World Elephant Day, an 8-team football tournament, the first ever Elephant Cup, was organized.

These sporting events drew more than 2,000 spectators to the sidelines, providing a captive audience for key messaging.

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F I B ER S O F C H A N G E : FROM INVASIVE TO INVEN T IV E WA BiCC worked with a women-led entrepreneurial cooperative from Ghana called Global Mamas to protect and advance biodiversity in degraded forest communities on the Volta River. The partnership supported 200 people and created 64 livelihoods involved in the sustainable harvesting of water hyacinth along the lower Volta River Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is an aquatic invasive The Global Mamas applied two of their main skills to the plant: plant that can double its size in less than two weeks. Deceptively papermaking and weaving. As a result, Global Mamas also beautiful, this aggressive weed clogs waterways and affects water developed new products that incorporated water hyacinth transport, power generation, health, agriculture, and fisheries. with other materials like batik-styled cloth. Currently, the In Ghana, chemical and biological interventions to control the Global Mamas website offers coasters, table runners, trivets, plant have failed to sustainably control it. While the negative and stationary made with the plant. In February 2020, the impacts of the plant are many, there are no ecological dangers women launched their first line of water hyacinth products at associated with its removal. the NYNOw trade show, where they signed several purchasing The Volta River Basin is one of West contracts.The products are also available “Not only are we able to Africa’s main rivers and a lifeline for in the Global Mamas store in Accra. pre s e r ve the live lihood of Global Mamas also partnered with the some of region’s poorest communities. s ever al hundre d wome n in multi-national firm 3M to come up Nearly half of the basin is in Ghana and home to dense populations living the middle of an economic with a strategy on how to reach new downtur n, but the re is a on agriculture and animal husbandry. markets with the hyacinth crafts. The collective pr ide we s hare The pressure of population growth collaboration allowed Global Mamas to and the overuse of resources have knowing that we are wor king gain a better understanding of its most resulted in depleted forests and together to s top the s pre ad marketable products and platforms of COVID-19 in Ghana.” exacerbated poverty. such as corporate gifting, with a focus on Under these conditions, Global Mamas helping organizations hold sustainable Mallory Savisaar, Global Mamas’ Fibers of Change project manager. utilized support from WA BiCC to conferences. turn an abundant resource like water hyacinth into a sustainable livelihood for five communities in C HALLENGING G E N D E R N O RM S the Akuse area, which are already organized in natural resource The project Fibers of Change also contributed to gender and social inclusion, one of WA-BiCC’s major priorities, as women management and biodiversity conservation.

The mamas hosted consultants from around Africa to learn made up the majority of direct beneficiaries. how they are using the water hyacinth to create marketable WA BiCC extended its support to Global Mamas to confront products in their communities. They used WA BiCC support the COVID-19 pandemic by producing protective facemasks. to procure processing and production equipment like a pulping In total, Global Mamas produced and distributed over 19,800 machine, weaving looms, sewing machines, among others. They masks to its staff, communities, and high-risk health facilities learned best practices for harvesting and processing the plant. dealing with the pandemic, such as prisons.

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CONSERVATION NEEDS PEOPLE AS MUCH AS PEOPLE NEED CONSERVATION WA BiCC-supported interventions in the three forest landscapes are still just a small part of a long-term effort to conserve transboundary national parks and their surrounding forests landscapes. Biodiversity assessments, capacity building, and community sustainable agriculture adaption programs take time and resources. Due to this, WA BiCC and its grantees aimed to plan activities and projects that can be adopted and continued by national and local government leaders and shared with communities. Building on the lessons learned and recommendations can help USAID and partners expand scale-up conservation activities. Transboundary collaboration and coordination will continue building on the structures established through WABiCC support, and progress towards organizing joint patrols, biomonitoring, and community engagement continue.

• Frontlines: The porous nature of the park boundaries coupled with the limited number of park rangers, means that all communities in proximity to the park must be engaged to become a line of defense.

Engaging with one and not the other will make it challenging to achieve the project’s objectives, as they will interpret that as a statement that they are less important.

• Community involvement: Seeking the input and participation of communities in finding solutions to conflict can lead to a lasting result. Case in point, engagement with communities to remove the miners from Sapo National Park is more likely to prevent the miners’ re-entry to the park. Treating local communities as equal partners for implementing project activities results in reliable allies, and sustained engagement encourages them to enforce conservation regulations.

• Community-based organizations: Supporting CBOs to draft their by-laws and establish leadership structures is vital, but also develop the their technical capacity to function with greater autonomy.

Making them membership-based could increase active participation.

• Biomonitoring awareness: Camera trapping sensitization is important to prevent the communities from destroying the cameras. Based on previous experiences, some communities may view the camera traps as a threat if not educated first on the rational for biomonitoring and camera trapping.

• Building institutional capacity: Sustained mentoring is essential to help Liberia’s FDA teams perform at an optimal level. Providing a technical specialist and biodiversity officer based at park headquarters can engage with park staff and provide on-the-spot training on relevant topics resulting in higher quality of data by law enforcement and biomonitoring participants.

• Human-wildlife conflict: There needs to be a concrete plan that shows communities that conservation partners’ interest goes beyond the forest and its animals and includes them as custodians of these resources. Data and information is the first step to creating a mitigation strategy.

• Increase ecotourism: These projects have the potential to create income and act as behavior change tools regarding ecosystem services, protected species, wildlife law, threats to biodiversity, and impacts of climate change.

• Institutional partnerships: Forest management agencies and partners need to develop working relationships with government entities like Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Mines and Energy, National Police, joint security structures at the country and regional level, and the judiciary to ensure coordination of land use allocation, law enforcement, and prosecution of individual arrested for wildlife crime.

“ I f we’r e go in g t o t a ke ap p r o p r iate action to s a fe g u a r d this uniq ue b io d ive r s i t y, i t ’s vital that we ga i n a f u l l e r und er stand ing o f w hat i s a c t u a l ly o ut ther e so we ca n i de n t i f y the ar eas m ost i n n e e d o f co nser vatio n a t t e n t i o n .”

Mary Molokwu-Odozi, FFI’s Country Manager for Liberia

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2015-2021

W EST AFR IC A BIODI V ERS IT Y A N D CLIMATE CHANGE PROGRAM Annexes

ANNEXES TABLE OF CONTENTS Annex I: PERFORMANCE INDICATOR TABLE, LIFE OF PROJECT

Annex II: FISCAL YEAR 2021 SUMMARY REPORT: OCTOBER 2020-FEBRUARY 2021

Annex III: GRANTS SUMMARY, LIFE OF PROJECT

Annex IV : KEY LEARNING RESOURCES

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