Explorer and environmentalist Ian Packham experiences the plight of wildlife in West Africa, and learns how one community mobilised to protect nature.
Over the coming weeks, longstanding Environment Journal contributor Ian Packham will be reporting from the rainforests of Ghana. Or what’s left of them.
The West African country was once home to 230,000 square miles of dense jungle, home to countless indigenous species and communities that lived in harmony alongside them. Today, tree cover is massively depleted, with 18,000 hectares of primary forest lost in 2022 alone, a 70% increase on the previous year’s deforestation figures.
Logging, cocoa farming, and mining are among the biggest causes of rainforest loss in the country and wider region, and after decades the impact is more than visible. As Packham explains, the remaining jungle is more a series of disconnected ‘islands’, and the discontinuous nature of the remaining tree cover is a huge contributor to species decline.
So much has been lost, but thankfully not all. Heading into the Kukum National Park, we learn how legal protections for the rainforest were secured by the local community. This has provided a safe habitat for a range of animals, including the Diana monkey, the Bongo antelope, and even elephants. To understand more about this vital work and the experiences of people living in the area, hit play on the first of Packham’s reports from Ghana below. You can also find his previous work for Environment Journal, investigating signs of the climate crisis from Pakistan.
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Image: Ian Packham