Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

West Africa > Liberia > Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

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Summary

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• Western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) are present in Cestos-Senkwehn.
• The population size is unknown.
• The chimpanzee population trend is unknown.
• This site has a total size of 832.09 km².
• Key threats to chimpanzees are artisanal and large-scale mining and poaching.
• No conservation activities have been reported for the site.
• Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area forms part of an Important Bird Area (IBA). There are plans to link Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area to Sapo National Park. The area falls into one of the conservation priority areas identified for Liberia by Junker et al. (2015). The latter was ranked highest of all patches in terms of chimpanzee density, and mammal and tree diversity and links up with Krahn Bassa National Forest.

Site characteristics

Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area lies in the lowly populated coastal centre of Liberia between the towns of Buchanan and Greenville and stretches inland from the coast for some 70 km. The area serves as host for wildlife transiting from Krahn-Bassa Proposed Protected Area and Sapo National Park. Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area includes inland-, littoral-, and mangrove forests (Verschuren 1983). The site has also been classified as an IBA. In addition to chimpanzees, Tweh et al. (2014) found tracks of zebra- Cephalophus zebra, Maxwell- Philantomba maxwellii, and black duiker Cephalophus niger in this area during their nationwide survey. The endangered pygmy hippopotamus Choeropsis liberiensis has been reported for this site (Mallon et al. 2011), but could not be confirmed by Tweh et al. (2014) who surveyed two line transects in this area.

Table 1. Basic site information for Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Species	Pan troglodytes verus
Area	832.09 km²
Coordinates	Lat: 5.49 , Lon: -9.30
Type of site	Proposed protected area
Habitat types	Subtropical/tropical moist lowland forest, Wetlands (lakes, rivers, streams, bogs, marshes), Marine coastal/supratidal
Type of governance

Types of sites Governance types Habitat types

Ape status

No published information could be found on wildlife surveys conducted in this area. Tweh et al. (2014) surveyed two line transects, each 3 km in length, and recces in Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area during their nationwide survey and found 10 chimpanzee nests in three different groups (Junker unpubl. data).

Table 2. Ape population estimates reported for Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Species	Year	Occurrence	Encounter or vistation rate (nests/km; ind/day)	Density estimate [ind./ km²] (95% CI)	Abundance estimate (95% CI)	Survey area	Sampling method	Analytical framework	Source	Comments	A.P.E.S. database ID
Pan troglodytes verus	2023	Present				Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area	Camera trap		Fauna & Flora
Pan troglodytes verus	2012		3.3			Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area	Line transects & recces		Tweh et al. 2014 (Junker unpubl. data)	Reconnaissance walk, total survey effort: 6 km, 10 nests were found

Sampling methods Analytical frameworks

Threats

The main threats to chimpanzees in this area include artisanal mining for gold and poaching. Tweh et al. (2014) found numerous empty cartridges and a few snares, as well as signs of artisanal gold mining. However, people who were interviewed in the villages in this area reported that there was a local taboo against killing chimpanzees in their area (Junker unpubl. data). The area has also been assigned to a mining company on a Mineral Exploration License (MEL) (Johnson et al. 2015). This license type entails that after a proposed exploration program has been handed to the Minister of Land, Mines, and Energy, the company commences exploration (Wilson et al. 2017).

Table 3. Threats to apes reported for Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Category	Specific threats	Threat level	Description	Year of threat
3 Energy production & mining	3.2 Mining & quarrying	High (more than 70% of population affected)	Open pit mining for gold (Johnson 2015), MEL issued in 2011 (Johnson 2015), signs of artisanal gold mining were recorded on 2 line transects (Junker unpubl. data)	2011-Ongoing (2017)
5 Biological resource use	5.1 Hunting & collecting terrestrial animals	Present (unknown severity)	Empty cartridges and snares were recorded on 2 line transects (Junker unpubl. data). Hunting signs recorded on recce transects (Fauna & Flora 2023).	2014-Ongoing (2023)

Threats

Conservation activities

No conservation activities have been reported for the site.

Table 4. Conservation activities reported for Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Category	Specific activity	Description	Implementing organization(s)	Year of activity
5 Protection & restoration	5.5 Demarcate and enforce boundaries of protected areas	Bamford pers. comm. 2024		Ongoing (2024)

Conservation activities

Challenges

Table 5. Challenges reported for Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Challenges	Specific challenges	Source	Year(s)
	Not reported
	Unknown

Challenges

Enablers

Table 6. Enablers reported for Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Enablers	Specific enablers	Source	Year(s)
1 Site management
2 Resources and capacity
3 Engaged community
4 Institutional support
5 Ecological context
6 Safety and stability

Enablers

Research activities

No information on research activities has been documented.

Documented behaviours

Table 7. Behaviours documented for Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Category	Behavior	Observation type	Prevalence	Observation dates	Source	Habituation	Species	Comment
	Not reported
	Not reported

Behaviours

Exposure to climate change impacts

As part of a study on the exposure of African great ape sites to climate change impacts, Kiribou et al. subm. extracted climate data and data on projected extreme climate impact events for the site. Climatological characteristics were derived from observation-based climate data provided by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP, www.isimip.org). Parameters were calculated as the average across each 30-year period. For 1981-2010, the EWEMBI dataset from ISIMIP2a was used. For the two future periods (2021-2050 and 2071-2099) ISIMIP2b climate data based on four CMIP5 global climate models were used. For future projections, two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) were used. RCP 2.6 is a scenario with strong mitigation measures in which global temperatures would likely rise below 2C. RCP 6.0 is a scenario with medium emissions in which global temperatures would likely rise up to 3C by 2100. For the number of days with heavy precipitation events, the 98th percentile of all precipitation days (>1mm/d) was calculated for the 1979-2013 reference period as a threshold for a heavy precipitation event. Then, for each year, the number of days above that threshold was derived. The figures on temperature and precipitation anomaly show the deviation from the mean temperature and mean precipitation for the 1979-2013 reference period.

The estimated exposure to future extreme climate impact events (crop failure, drought, river flood, wildfire, tropical cyclone, and heatwave) is based on a published dataset by Lange et al. 2020 derived from ISIMIP2b data. The same global climate models and RCPs as described above were used. Within each 30-year period, the number of years with an extreme event and the average proportion of the site affected were calculated (see Kiribou et al. subm. for details).

Table 8. Estimated past and projected climatological characteristics in Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Value	1981-2010	2021-2050, RCP 2.6	2021-2050, RCP 6.0	2071-2099, RCP 2.6	2071-2099, RCP 6.0
Mean temperature [C]	26	26.9	26.8	27	28
Annual precipitation [mm]	2803	2837	2950	2840	2959
Max no. consecutive dry days (per year)	16.6	21.5	17.4	20.9	19.9
No. days with heavy precipitation (per year)	5.9	12.3	12.8	13.3	14.7

Table 9. Projected exposure of apes to extreme climate impact events in Cestos-Senkwehn Proposed Protected Area

Type	No. of years with event (2021-2050, RCP 2.6)	% of site exposed (2021-2050, RCP 2.6)	No. of years with event (2021-2050, RCP 6.0)	% of site exposed (2021-2050, RCP 6.0)	No. of years with event (2070-2099, RCP 2.6)	% of site exposed (2070-2099, RCP 2.6)	No. of years with event (2070-2099, RCP 6.0)	% of site exposed (2070-2099, RCP 6.0)
Crop failure	0.5	0	1	0.03	0.5	0.01	1.5	0.03
Drought	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Heatwave	12	100	10.5	100	12.5	100	15	100
River flood	0.5	0.08	1.5	2.19	1	0.25	2	0.15
Tropical cyclone	0	0	1	2.24	0	0	0.5	3.23
Wildfire	29.75	0.48	30	0.41	29	0.49	29	0.44

References

Johnson S. 2015. Aggregated Biodiversity Offsets: A Roadmap for Liberia’s Mining Sector. Unpublished report by the World Bank Group (WBG) and Program On Forests (PROFOR).

Junker J, Boesch C, Freeman T, Mundry R, Stephens C, Kühl HS. 2015. Integrating wildlife conservation with conflicting economic land-use goals in a West African biodiversity hotspot. Basic and Applied Ecology: doi:10.1016/j.baae.2015.07.002.

Mallon D, Wightman C, De Onellas P, Ransom C. 2011. Conservation Strategy for the Pygmy Hippopotamus. IUCN Species Survival Commission.

Tweh C, Lormie M, Kouakou CY, Hillers A, Kühl HS, Junker J, et al. 2014. Conservation status of chimpanzees Pan troglodytes verus and other large mammals in Liberia: a nationwide survey. Oryx: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0030605313001191.

Verschuren J. 1983. Conservation of Tropical Rainforest in Liberia. Recommendations for Wildlife Conservation and National Parks. IUCN/WWF.

Wilson STK, Wang H, Kabenge M, Qi X. 2017. The mining sector of Liberia: current practices and environmental challenges. Environmental Science and Pollution Research 24: 18711–18720.

Fauna & Flora. (2023). Threat assesment of Cestos-Senkwehn and Grand Kru-River Gee Proposed Protected Areas. Unpublished report to Conservation Works / USAID.

Page created by: Andrew Bamford Date: 2024-09-05