Summary

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Western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) may be present in Mamiri Forest Reserve.
No chimpanzees were recorded in the last survey.
The chimpanzee population trend is decreasing.
The site has a total size of 45 km².
Key threats to chimpanzees are hunting and presence of farms and plantations.
Conservation activities are not documented.

Site characteristics

Mamiri Forest Reserve is located in western Ghana, near the town of Sureso, and it is connected to Fure Headwaters Forest Reserve in the south. The reserve was established in 1949. It was first logged in 1973, and in 1996, Samartex was granted a 40-year concession. The northern part of the reserve remains mostly intact, but forest in the south is degraded and fragmented. Areas bordering the northern part of the reserve are designated as a Hill Sanctuary. Mamiri's landscape contains a swampy valley and hills in the northern part (Gatti 2009). The site was declared an Important Bird Area in 2001 (BirdLife International 2022).

Table 1. Basic site information for Mamiri Forest Reserve

Species	Pan troglodytes verus
Area	45 km²
Coordinates	Lat: 5.666274 , Lon: -2.349749
Type of site	Protected area (Forest Reserve)
Habitat types	Subtropical/tropical moist lowland forest
Type of governance

Types of sites Governance types Habitat types

Ape status

The last survey to confirm chimpanzee presence was in 2005 (Oates 2006). A rapid survey was conducted at the site in 2009 in the context of the Wildlife Wood Project in Ghana, which aims to assist logging companies in improving wildlife management in concession areas (Gatti 2009). No signs of chimpanzees were recorded.

Table 2. Ape population estimates reported for Mamiri Forest Reserve

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	2009		0			Mamiri Forest Reserve	Camera trap, Reconnaissance walk		Gatti 2009	survey effort: 88.67 km	GHA0001, GHA0007 GHA0012, GHA0024, GHA0027, GHA0028, GHA0029

Sampling methods Analytical frameworks

Threats

Table 3. Threats to apes reported for Mamiri Forest Reserve

Category	Specific threats	Threat level	Description	Year of threat
2 Agriculture & aquaculture	2.2 Wood & pulp plantations	Present (unknown severity)	The site includes c.2.3 ha of plantation and a few farms (BirdLife International 2022).	Ongoing (2022)
5 Biological resource use	5.1 Hunting & collecting terrestrial animals	High (more than 70% of population affected)	Hunting has severely impacted wildlife in the reserve (Gatti 2009).	Ongoing (2009)
5 Biological resource use	5.3 Logging & wood harvesting	Present (unknown severity)	Mamiri was first logged in 1973. In 1996, Samartex was granted a 40-year concession (Gatti 2009).	1973

Threats

Conservation activities

Challenges

Table 5. Challenges reported for Mamiri Forest Reserve

Challenges	Specific challenges	Source	Year(s)
	Not reported

Challenges

Enablers

Table 6. Enablers reported for Mamiri Forest Reserve

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

Documented behaviours

Table 7. Behaviours documented for Mamiri Forest Reserve

Category	Behavior	Observation type	Prevalence	Observation dates	Source	Habituation	Species	Comment
	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. (2024) 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 (Kiribou et al. 2024).

Table 8. Estimated past and projected climatological characteristics in Mamiri Forest Reserve

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]	27.2	28.3	28	28.4	29.5
Annual precipitation [mm]	1509	1442	1515	1460	1520
Max no. consecutive dry days (per year)	25.4	21	24.3	24.8	23.7
No. days with heavy precipitation (per year)	6.6	6.9	7.7	7.5	10.8

Table 9. Projected exposure of apes to extreme climate impact events in Mamiri Forest Reserve

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	1	5.46	0.5	2.73	1	5.46	3.5	5.46
Drought	1.75	50	1	75	0	0	1	100
Heatwave	10.5	100	11	100	9.5	50	5.5	100
River flood	0.5	0.46	0.5	0.18	0.5	0.09	1	2.07
Tropical cyclone	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.5	3.07
Wildfire	30	0.23	30	0.22	29	0.21	29	0.2

Precipitation anomaly in Mamiri Forest Reserve
Temperature anomaly in Mamiri Forest Reserve

External links

References

BirdLife International (2022) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Mamiri Forest Reserve. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 15/03/2022.

Gatti, S. (2009). Mammal surveys and capacity building for the Wildlife Wood Project - Ghana. Unpublished report to the WWP-Ghana.

Oates, J. (2006) Primate Conservation in the Forests of Western Ghana. Unpublished report to the Wildlife Division, Forestry Commission, Ghana.

Kiribou, R., Tehoda, P., Chukwu, O., Bempah, G., Kühl, H. S., Ferreira, J., …, & Heinicke, S. (2024). Exposure of African ape sites to climate change impacts. PLOS Climate, 3(2), e0000345. doi:10.1371/journal.pclm.0000345

Page created by: APES Atlas Team Date: 2022-03-18