Ghana Pangolin Project

Pangolin project in action

In the rural southern Ghana, the Asukese Forest Reserve is home to wild pangolins. I am very proud, with a friend Faith Barcroft to be involved in a small conservation education project close to the forest, run by the Alliance for Pangolin Conservation-Ghana, a locally run pangolin conservation group. The group are working with local primary schools to raise awareness of the importance of conserving endangered species such as pangolins, illegally killed in the local forest for bushmeat. With support from a variety of conservation grants the team have set up camera traps in the local forest – and share footage of pangolins with the community. They have persuaded poachers to become rangers and continue to explore alternative livelihoods for local people.

I am so grateful to my publishers Pearson who readily agreed to send over a box of my books The Boy and the Pangolin to the community and to Jessie Dixon of bwa.design for designing the group’s fabulous pangolin logo in conversation with Augustine Oti Yeboah and Agro Prince Pascal who lead the team. This project continues to be such an interesting opportunity to learn about effective grassroots conservation in regular Zoom calls and conversations about challenges at a local, national and global level of community conservation.