🎉 New Candidate Wildlife Heritage Area! ✨
We're very excited to announce our latest candidate area, Mintom Gorilla Heritage Area, situated in the communal forest of Mintom in southern Cameroon 🇨🇲 and focusing on lowland gorillas. 🦍 This vast evergreen forest is home to various animals, including gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys, antelopes, snakes and more. The species here are special because they remain abundant despite being rare in other Congo basin forests.
🌴 Both subspecies of lowland gorilla (Eastern and Western) occur in Mintom. Eastern lowland gorillas are found primarily in the eastern Congo basin, while western lowland gorillas inhabit forests in western Central Africa, including Cameroon. Western lowland gorillas have a smaller frame, brown-grey fur, and more pronounced ridges on their skulls. Eastern lowland gorillas are larger, with darker black fur. Both are critically endangered, and conservation efforts focus on protecting their shrinking habitats and curbing illegal hunting.
❌ Mintom Communal Forest faces many threats both to the fauna and flora. In this particular area:
💰 Exploitation: The forest is open to exploitation permits granted by the council to generate income, which destroys gorilla habitats.
🏹 Hunting and trading bush meat: Hunters pose a fatal threat to gorillas in Mintom forest.
🐐 Agriculture: Deforestation and bushfires to clear land for agriculture significantly damage gorilla habitats.
⚒ Mining: Both local and industrialised mining contribute to the loss of gorilla habitat.
🤝 The Wildlife Heritage Areas team is working with Mintom Gorilla Heritage Area stakeholders to assist them in their designation journey. This is achieved through the programme’s criteria and guiding principles, which include providing support from responsible travel organisations and wildlife experts, helping the local community turn the tide on biodiversity loss, adopting a zero-tolerance policy for wildlife suffering in tourism, and advocating for positive change through a willingness to collaborate.
👉 Discover more: https://lnkd.in/e_Yat8JT
World Animal Protection
World Cetacean Alliance
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