Evidence for the critical importance of anti-poaching patrols to protect African wildlife

Abstract

Tropical forests are on the front lines of the current global extinction crisis, and effective conservation strategies are crucial to prevent continued wildlife declines and extinctions. The establishment and maintenance of protected areas have constituted a primary strategy to safeguard wildlife against anthropogenic threats including overhunting and habitat destruction and degradation. Empirical research is critical for determining their effectiveness. Part of West Africa's Upper Guinea Forests biodiversity hotspot, protected areas in Ghana include both Wildlife Protected Areas (WPAs) and Forest Reserves (FRs) where all hunting is prohibited. Their management differs in that WPAs feature active anti-poaching patrols, whereas FRs lack law enforcement staff. WPAs and FRs include both logged and unlogged forest, but only FRs feature active logging concessions. We conducted surveys and camera trap sampling to assess forest mammal communities and poaching pressure in nine protected forests in Ghana, including both WPAs and FRs featuring both logged and unlogged forest. From April 2009 to April 2010, we completed 134 hours of surveys, comprising a total distance of 193 km, as well as 1170 trap nights of camera trap sampling. We assumed that not all species were detected and used a bootstrap approach to estimate species richness from empirical species abundance curves generated by our sampling data. Many mammal species, such as diurnal primates and forest elephants, were predominantly or exclusively in WPAs with active anti-poaching patrols, and rarely or never in FRs. We found more evidence of poaching than of mammals in FRs, whereas we found significantly higher mammal species richness and abundance in WPAs with active anti-poaching patrols. In FRs, we found that mammal species richness was four times higher, and abundance five time higher, in unlogged compared to logged forest, indicating a strong negative influence of logging on mammal species richness and abundance. These results are comparable to parallel studies of forest birds (Arcilla et al. 2015, Holbech et al. In review), which indicated severe adverse effects of logging and poaching on wildlife species richness and abundance in the absence of law enforcement. These findings highlight the acute poaching pressure and habitat degradation faced by wildlife in logging concessions, and demonstrate the effectiveness and crucial importance of anti-poaching patrols for wildlife conservation.

Citations

Arcilla N, Holbech LH, & S O'Donnell. 2015. Severe declines of understory birds follow illegal logging in Ghana, West Africa. Biological Conservation 188, 41-49.

Holbech LH, Annorbah NDD, Phalan B, & N Arcilla. In review. Uncontrolled hunting and habitat degradation decimate and extirpate forest hornbills in Ghana, West Africa. Biological Conservation.