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West Africa > Ghana > Ankasa Conservation Area

Summary

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• Western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) may be present in Ankasa Conservation Area.
• Chimpanzees have not been documented in the area since 2016.
• The chimpanzee population trend is unknown; possibly absent.
• The site has a total size of 509 km².
• Key threats to chimpanzees are agricultural encroachment and hunting.
• Conservation activities have focused on education, patrolling, and preventing further degradation from farming activities.

Site characteristics

Ankasa Conservation Area (National Park and Resource Reserve) is located in the South Western part of Ghana, borderingIvory Coast. The Park is one of the few remnants of undisturbed Tropical Rainforest in Ghana. It was created in 1976. The site is very rich in biodiversity including forest elephants, bongos, leopards, olive colobus, black and white colobus, mangabey and other monkeys, yellow backed duikers and other duikers, pangolins, over 200 species of birds recorded, over 600 species of butterflies etc. The area is one of the known World Bird Areas and a Key Biodiversity Area (Ofori-Amanfo, R. pers. comm. 2023).

Table 1. Basic site information for Ankasa Conservation Area

Species
Area	509 km²
Coordinates	5.252710, -2.583665
Type of site	Conservation Area and Resource Reserve
Habitat types	Subtropical/Tropical Moist Lowland Forest
Type of governance

IUCN habitat categories Site designations

Ape status

Chimpanzees have not been documented in the area since 2016.

Threats

There are poaching camps, which the park’s staff has encountered, as well as temporary farm houses in encroached areas, but efforts are being made to clear all these in the park (Ofori-Amanfo pers. obs. 2023).

Table 3. Threats to apes in Ankasa Conservation Area

Category	Specific threats	Threat level	Description	Year of threat
1 Residential & commercial development		Unknown
2 Agriculture & aquaculture	2.1 Annual & perennial non-timber crops	Medium	The community members are predominantly farmers, embarking on cocoa and rubber plantations affecting the surroundings of the park and the entire landscape (Ofori-Amanfo pers. obs. 2023).	Ongoing (2023)
3 Energy production & mining		Unknown
4 Transportation & service corridors		Unknown
5 Biological resource use	5.1 Hunting & collecting terrestrial animals	Low	Communities surrounding the Park (Ofori-Amanfo pers. obs. 2023).	2016 - 2020
6 Human intrusions & disturbance		Unknown
7 Natural system modifications		Unknown
8 Invasive & other problematic species, genes & diseases		Unknown
9 Pollution		Unknown
10 Geological events		Absent
11 Climate change & severe weather		Unknown
12 Other threat		Absent

IUCN Threats list

Conservation activities

The Wildlife Division of Forestry Commission is the main organization that protects the Ankasa Conservation Area. Forest Research Institute and some Universities in the country carry out research in the Park and give some recommendations regarding management of some of the species and information on some species in the Park for conservation and management purposes.

Table 4. Conservation activities in Ankasa Conservation Area

Category	Specific activity	Description	Implementing organization(s)	Year of activity
1 Development impact mitigation	1.3 Prohibit (livestock) farmers from entering protected areas	Farmers and all unauthorised people are not allowed to enter into the reserve by intensive patrols within the area (Ofori-Amanfo pers. obs. 2023).		Ongoing (2023)
1 Development impact mitigation	1.4 Farm more intensively and effectively in selected areas and spare more natural land	Old cocoa and rubber farms are being cleared (since 2016) to plant new hybrid to yield more products to increase farmers income rather than clearing more land for cultivation (Ofori-Amanfo pers. obs. 2023).		Ongoing (2023)
2 Counter-wildlife crime	2.3 Conduct regular anti-poaching patrols	Field staff undertake day patrols, over night patrols and long/sleeping patrols in the Park to control poaching and for field data collection (Ofori-Amanfo pers. obs. 2023).		Ongoing (2023)
2 Counter-wildlife crime	2.8 Provide training to anti-poaching ranger patrols	Staff are trained in, how take field data on animals and how to manage the animal species causing human animals conflict and others (Ofori-Amanfo pers. obs. 2023).		Ongoing (2023)
4 Education & awareness	4.1 Educate local communities about apes and sustainable use	Local communities are educated on the need to conserve the resources in the Park since the 1990s (Ofori-Amanfo pers. obs. 2023).		Ongoing (2023)
5 Protection & restoration	5.2 Legally protect ape habitat			Ongoing

Conservation activities list (Junker et al. 2017)