Ankasa Exploration Base

Programme Background
Ankasa Resource Reserve and the contiguous Nini-Suhien National Park are Wildlife Protected Areas located in the wet evergreen forest area of the South-Western Region of Ghana, forming a key component of West Africa’s Upper Guinean Forest Ecosystem.

This 490km area of intact wet evergreen forest is extremely rich in biodiversity, with up to 300 plant species in a single hectare. 43 mammal species including the bongo, forest elephant, 10 primate species including the endangered Dina Monkey and the West African chimpanzee have all been recorded. The area is also rich in bird fauna.

Ankasa Resource Reserve has been the focus of conservation efforts by the EU funded Protected Areas Development Programme (PADP) since 1998. This has included working with local communities and building the capacity of Ghana’s Wildlife Division (WD). Consultation with communities living on the periphery of the Reserve revealed that there were extremely low levels of awareness concerning the reasons for the protected status of Ankasa.

Programme Objectives
The Ankasa Exploration Base (AEB), located several kilometers inside the Ankasa Resource Reserve, has been developed by the Living Earth Foundation (LEF) as a learning and resource centre to promote environmental awareness as well as community participation in conservation and land-use planning. Developed as part of a broader conservation education strategy, AEB is primarily a facility for young people living in the surrounding communities; including both those enrolled in school and out-of school youth. Facilitated through an experiential learning programme, the young people learn about the significance of the rainforest as a natural resource and the importance of conserving it, as well as its role in sustaining their livelihoods.

The overall management and control of the facilities at AEB are the joint responsibility of LEFG and the WD of the Forestry Commission of Ghana, although AEB have overall responsibility for the day-to-day activities of the Centre

Programme Activities
4-day experiential learning programme comprising:

• Guided exploration of the forest by trained Environmental Education

• Leaders (EELs)

• Activity-based visual learning (no reading or writing is involved)

• Group work and feedback sessions

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The programme is run using only the language/dialect of the visiting group. Each group is visited by an EEL prior to their stay at AEB. The impact of the programme’s activities is evaluated by the EEL visiting the group within 2 months of participating in the course. This helps to determine what the participants learnt from the programme and whether or not their awareness of the environment around them has been heightened.

Since the beginning of 2003,  more than 3000 children from communities surrounding the Ankasa Resource Reserve have attended the 4-day experiential learning programme at AEB.  Evidence suggests there is now a more positive attitude towards the forest’s protected status and active support for participatory conservation measures, implemented by the WD.

Programme Funding
This project was funded from 2002-2006 by Conservation International (CI) through the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), the running cost were also supported through a grant from Masterfoods GmbH of Germany.

The Future for Ankasa Exploration Base
The launch of PADP II in early 2006 will see the continued development of community based programmes in the Ankasa Resource Reserve, such as Living Earth's Darwin Training Programme. It  is hoped that owing to the success of AEB, it will be able to continue to deliver the experiential learning programme to local youths as well as for those from other regions of Ghana. Furthermore the success of AEB has allowed LEG to develop its capacity in  Ghana and begin to develop other similar programmes.