Gishwati forest is part of Gishwati-Mukura National Park. It has a long history of degradation due to human activities. Despite many efforts initiated to restore and protect this concession, the ...mining activities continue to affect its biodiversity. This study aims at assessing the impact of mining on the landscape, quality of water, soil, and vegetation in Gishwati and its vicinity. Data were collected from five mining sites and one non-mined control site. Methods included direct field observations of the landscape, physico-chemical analysis of water, mine tailings analysis and vegetation inventory, and measurement of the concentrations of metals/metalloids in both water and soil (mine tailings). The findings revealed that mining has accelerated the erosion and the stream/river sedimentation and has created new landforms around some mining sites. The physico-chemical properties of mine tailings piled and scattered on mining sites are not conducive for biodiversity, and the concentrations of metals and metalloids in the water and soil are generally higher on mining sites than on the non-mined area and even higher than international standards. Such high metal/metalloid concentrations threaten both aquatic and terrestrial life as they are likely to cause the extinction of a good number of vegetation species on mining sites. They may also cause toxicity and lead to migration of a variety of animals living in Gishwati. The study recommends the use of mining best practices to safeguard biodiversity in the Gishwati area.
AbstractThis study employed mixed methods, including a survey of 400 households, 21 key informants, and 10 focus groups conducted in January-March 2019, to evaluate the contribution of Volcanoes ...National Park (VNP) conservation to local food security in Rwanda. Data was collected from communities within 0-5 km and 5-10 km park buffers, facilitating distance-based comparisons. Food security status was assessed using the Consolidated Approach to Reporting Indicators of Food Security. Despite government attention to food security, its integration into VNP conservation remains minimal. Shockingly, 71% of local residents experience food insecurity, concentrated within the 0-5 km buffer. Interestingly, while only 38% of households directly benefit from park conservation, 72% of these beneficiaries reside within the 0-5 km zone. This suggests that community conservation and revenue-sharing programs are disproportionately funded at the park’s edge, where human pressure on resources is most significant. These findings highlight the need for policy and strategy amendments, as well as revisions to the park management plan, to effectively integrate food security concerns into VNP conservation efforts. Linking a specified percentage of revenue-sharing funds to participation in relevant food security programs, co-managing land for conservation and community needs, weaving food aid into safety nets for vulnerable groups, prompt wildlife damage payouts for secured livelihoods and fostered coexistence, and skill training and microloans for diversifying income and curbing poaching are crucial for enhancing food security among households around the VNP.
Bushmeat hunting is widely cited as cause for declines of wildlife populations throughout Africa. Forest duikers (Bovidae, Cephalophinae) are among the most exploited species. Whether current harvest ...rates imperil duikers is debated because of the difficulty of accurately assessing population trends. To assess population trends, we first reviewed literature for historical duiker population estimates. Second, we used systematic camera‐trap monitoring to assess population trends for 15 populations of nine duiker species in six national parks in Central and East Africa. We analysed annual monitoring data using Royle‐Nichols heterogeneity‐induced occupancy models to estimate abundance/sample point and derive occupancy estimates. Published density estimates indicate that duiker populations declined significantly throughout Africa between 1973 and 2013. There was a wide range of densities depending on species (x¯ range: 0.26–20.6 km−1) and whether populations were hunted (X¯ =6.3 km−1) or unhunted (X¯ = 16.3 km−1). More recent analysis of camera‐trap monitoring produced different results. Estimated mean point abundance over time was between 0 and 0.99 individuals/point for four populations, between 1.0 and 1.99 for six populations, and greater than 2.0 for five populations. We observed five populations of duikers with negative trends in point abundances, although only one trend was significant and point abundance estimates for three populations were above 2.0 in the final survey year. Six populations showed positive trends in point abundance (three significant), and the remaining populations displayed no trends. Average occupancy was high (Ψ > 0.60) except for three populations. While literature indicates that historical population declines have occurred, most duiker populations appear relatively healthy in monitored parks. Our results indicate that these parks are effective in protecting most duikers despite hunting pressure. We recommend that systematic, standardized camera‐trap monitoring be initiated in other African parks in combination with point‐abundance models to objectively assess forest ungulate population trends.
We use multi‐year camera trap data and Royle‐Nichols models to evaluate trends in 9 forest duiker species in 6 African parks. We show that, despite hunting pressure, duiker populations are generally healthy in these parks. We argue that systematic camera trap monitoring is an efficient and accurate method to monitor exploited duiker populations.
As great ape populations around the world continue to decline, largely due to anthropogenic activities, conservation programs aimed at supporting these efforts have had mixed success. Here, we ...evaluate our community‐based conservation program in Gishwati forest, Rwanda, aimed at helping to restore biodiversity and ecosystem services using chimpanzees as a flagship species. We examine the effectiveness of this program on reducing one of the ongoing threats to Gishwati's population of chimpanzees, illegal cattle grazing as well as the program's influence on the size of the chimpanzee population. We monitored illegal cattle grazing during several study periods between 2009 and 2019 in Gishwati forest following the implementation of our conservation program in 2008 that included law enforcement, community engagement, and research components. We found that when our conservation program was active, illegal cattle grazing was reduced to low levels. We also observed an increase in the chimpanzee population size during the 11 years since we started our conservation program. We examine how this reduction in cattle grazing and increase in chimpanzee population size may have been influenced by our community‐centered approach and discuss the future of our conservation work in Gishwati.
The number of cattle grazing events recorded each month across the 18‐month study period by the research team between 2009 and 2010.
Research Highlights
This study demonstrates the importance of a community‐centered conservation approach that includes community engagement, law enforcement, and research components.
Our data suggest that the implementation of this approach resulted in a reduction in illegal cattle grazing and an increase in chimpanzee population size in the Gishwati forest.
Wild foods and other nonfood NTFPs are important for improving food security and supplementing incomes in rural peoples' livelihoods. However, studies on the importance of NTFPs to rural communities ...are often limited to a few select sites and are conducted in areas that are already known to have high rates of NTFP use. To address this, we examined the role of geographic and household level variables in determining whether a household would report collecting wild foods and other nonfood NTFP across 25 agro-ecological landscapes in Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Ghana. The aim of this study was to contribute to the literature on NTFP collection in Africa and to better understand where people depend on these resources by drawing on a broad range of sites that were highly variable in geographic characteristics as well as rates of NTFP collection to provide a better understanding of the determinants of NTFP collection. We found that geographic factors, such as the presence of forests, non-forest natural areas like grasslands and shrublands, and lower population density significantly predict whether a household will report collecting NTFP, and that these factors have greater explanatory power than household characteristics
•Data was collected from 751 households located across 4 African countries.•Geographic factors significantly predict whether households collect NTFP.•Natural land cover types were associated with collecting wild food NTFP.•Low population densities were associated with nonfood NTFP.
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