Year: 2017/2018 – 2018/2019

Funders: New England Biolabs Foundation & Rufford Foundation, 2017/2018

This project contributed to the conservation of Amanzule wetlands, which is a biodiversity hotspot in Western Ghana harbouring a diversity of endangered and critically endangered wildlife, designated as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by Birdlife International and proposed for listing under the Ramsar Convention. The wetlands provide a diversity of essential local, national, and global ecosystem goods and services (e.g., water, fish, fuelwood, recreation, carbon sequestration, etc.) and are a key source of livelihoods for over 10,000 residents within its catchment. Despite these local to global scale significance, the wetlands lack formal conservation status.

The project focused on school children and women to facilitate inclusiveness in conservation efforts. Ecosystem services assessment was conducted, and tools were developed to support decision making and conservation planning. The project enhanced the knowledge of the school children, identified community specific threats, and developed and match conservation approaches to help address the community’s peculiar conservation threats. These approaches were exhibited by the school children to the residents using art codes at a conservation forum organized by the project.