Enabling long-term wildlife persistence through a network of community-conserved no-hunting refugia in unprotected African rainforests

African rainforests support a wealth of threatened and endemic wildlife species, yet these species are under mounting pressure from unsustainable bushmeat hunting. If current trends continue, the region risks losing not only irreplaceable species but also the ecological functions that underpin local livelihoods and long-term forest resilience. There is an urgent need for evidence-based strategies that integrate ecological science with community-led stewardship.

This project aims to generate the ecological and spatial evidence required to design a network of community-conserved, no-hunting forest refugia that can function as demographic “source areas” for wildlife recovery. The study will focus on the Yabassi Key Biodiversity Area (YKBA) in Cameroon, one of the largest remaining, yet unprotected, intact forest tracts in the Gulf of Guinea biodiversity hotspot and a landscape under intense hunting pressure.

I will conduct landscape-scale biodiversity assessments using camera trapping and passive acoustic monitoring to quantify species richness, relative abundance, activity patterns, and community composition. I will also measure hunting pressure through automated gunshot detection and systematic reconnaissance surveys documenting snares and other hunting indicators. Concurrently, I will collaborate with partners to develop machine-learning models to automate species identification images and audio. Using these integrated datasets, I will apply occupancy modelling, community-integrity metrics, and spatially explicit analyses of hunting intensity to identify potential wildlife refugia with the highest potential to sustain long-term wildlife persistence. These results will be shared through a participatory process with local communities and customary authorities to support co-design of governance mechanisms for candidate no-hunting refugia. Ultimately, this project will provide the scientific and ecological foundation and local ownership needed to secure a functional network of wildlife refugia across the landscape.

Involved researchers: Vianny Rodel Nguimdo Vouffo, Matthias Waltert