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West Africa > Ghana > Ankasa Conservation Area
Summary
- 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 |