Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve

West Africa > Ghana > Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve

Summary

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• Western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) are present in Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve.
• The population size is unknown.
• The chimpanzee population trend is unknown.
• This site has a total size of 481.7 km².
• Key threats to chimpanzees are logging, farming, and hunting.
• Information on conservation activities implemented at the site is lacking.

Site characteristics

Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve is located in southwestern Ghana, to the east of Bia National Park. The reserve was established in 1935 (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2019), and it consists of two forest blocks, one above and one below the Asempaneye-Kumasi road (Ernst et al. 2008). The highest peak at the site is 594 m (Ernst et al. 2008). In addition to the western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes verus), other fauna found at the site include the western tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax dorsalis), royal antelope (Neotragus pygmaeus) (Oates 2006), olive colobus (Procolobus verus), black and white colobus (Colobus vellerosus) (Danquah et al. 2012), and a frog species discovered in the reserve, Arthroleptis krokosua (Ernst et al. 2008).

Table 1. Basic site information for Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve

Area	481.7 km²
Coordinates	6.54, -2.86
Designation	Forest Reserve (IUCN Management Category III)
Habitat types	Subtropical/Tropical Dry Forest,Subtropical/Tropical Moist Lowland Forest

IUCN habitat categories Site designations

Ape status

Traces of chimpanzees have been encountered during surveys, in 2005 (Oates 2006), 2006-2008 (Gatti 2010), and more recently in 2009 (Danquah et al. 2012), but population estimates are not available. The site has also been identified as the most likely to support a fairly large population of chimpanzees in Ghana (Caldecott & Miles 2005).

Table 2. Ape population estimates in Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve

Species	Year	Abundance estimate (95% CI)	Density estimate [ind./ km²] (95% CI)	Encounter rate (nests/km)	Area	Method	Source	Comments	A.P.E.S. database ID
Pan troglodytes verus	2005			Present	Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve	Interview and index survey	Oates 2006	Reconnaissance walk
Pan troglodytes verus	2006-2008			0.0045	Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve	Line transects (Distance) and index survey	Gatti 2010	Reconnaissance walks were also conducted, and the total survey effort was 448.24 km
Pan troglodytes verus	2009			Present	Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve	Line transect (Distance)	Danquah et al. 2012

Threats

The lowlands in Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve have been heavily logged in the past, but the forest in steeper areas has been less affected (Oates 2006). Illegal farming activities have also been found inside the reserve (Oates 2006). Another major threat to chimpanzees at the site is hunting, which appears to be very high (Oates 2006, Danquah et al. 2012).

Table 3. Threats to great apes in Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve

Category	Specific threats	Threat level	Quantified severity	Description	Year of threat
1. Residential & commercial development	1.1 Housing & urban areas	Present		Villages are present in the reserve (Ernst et al. 2008)	Ongoing (2008)
2. Agriculture & aquaculture	2.1 Annual & perennial non-timber crops	Present		Illegal cultivations patches of plantain, cocoyam, pepper, and marijuana found in the site (Oates 2006)	Ongoing (2006)
3. Energy production & mining		Not reported
4. Transportation & service corridors		Not reported
5. Biological resource use	5.1 Hunting & collecting terrestrial animals	High	Encounter rate of hunting signs: 1 km-1 (Danquah et al. 2012). A survey in 2006-2008 reported 0.857 hunting signs per km (Gatti 2010).	Hunting signs at the site have been frequently found, especially wire-snare traps (Oates 2006, Danquah et al. 2012	Ongoing (2006, 2012)
	5.3 Logging & wood harvesting	High		The area has been heavily logged (Oates 2006)	Ongoing (2006)
6. Human intrusions & disturbance		Not reported
7. Natural system modifications		Absent
8. Invasive & other problematic species, genes, diseases		Unknown
9. Pollution		Absent
10. Geological Events		Absent
11. Climate change & severe weather		Unknown
12. Other options		Absent

IUCN Threats list

Conservation activities

Information on conservation activities implemented at the site is lacking.

Table 4. Conservation activities in Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve

Category	Specific activity	Description	Year of activity
1. Residential & commercial development	Not reported
2. Agriculture & aquaculture	Not reported
3. Energy production & mining	Not reported
4. Transportation & service corridors	Not reported
5. Biological resource use	Not reported
6. Human intrusions & disturbance	Not reported
7. Natural system modifications	Not reported
8. Invasive & other problematic species, genes, diseases	Not reported
9. Pollution	Not reported
10. Education & Awareness	Not reported
11. Habitat Protection	11.2. Legally protect primate habitat	The site is designated as forest reserve since 1935 (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2019)	Ongoing (2019)
12. Species Management	Not reported
13. Livelihood; Economic & Other Incentives	Not reported

Conservation activities list (Junker et al. 2017)

Challenges

Table 5. Challenges reported for Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve

Challenge	Source
Corruption	Oates 2006

Research activities

No information on research activities has been documented.

Documented behaviours

Table 6. Great ape behaviors reported for Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve

Behavior	Source
Not reported

References

Caldecott, J. O., & Miles, L. (Eds.). (2005). World atlas of great apes and their conservation. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press.
Danquah, E., Oppong, S.K., Akom, E., and Sam, M. (2012) Preliminary Survey of Chimpanzees and Threatened Monkeys in the Bia-Goaso Forest Block in Southwestern Ghana. African Primates 7 (2): 163-174. Ernst, R., Agyei, A.C. & Rödel, M.-O. (2008) A new giant species of Arthroleptis (Amphibia: Anura: Arthroleptidae) from the Krokosua Hills Forest Reserve, south-western Ghana. Zootaxa, 1697, 58–68.
Gatti, S. (2010) Community Forest Biodiversity Project: Status of primate populations in Protected Areas targeted under CFBP.W APCA and WD/FC, Accra. p. 42.
Oates, J. (2006) Primate Conservation in the Forests of Western Ghana. Unpublished report to the Wildlife Division, Forestry Commission, Ghana.
UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (2019), Protected Planet: [Krokosua Hills FoR*; The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA)/The Global Database on Protected Areas Management Effectiveness (GD-PAME)] [On-line], [11/2019], Cambridge, UK: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. Available at: www.protectedplanet.net.

Page completed by: A.P.E.S. Wiki Team Date: 22/11/2019