wildlife biologist, conservationist, writer
Photograph by Kalyanee Mam in Bossou, Guinea 2018
WESTERN CHIMPANZEES
The most threatened of all chimpanzees according to the IUCN Red List
The Western chimpanzee (Pan troglydytes verus) used to be found across most of West Africa. Today, it has disappeared from Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso. There are less than fifty in Ghana, and small populations in Mali, Guinea-Bissau and Cote d'Ivoire. Only in Liberia and Sierra Leone are there several thousand. In Guinea there are approximately 33,000 left. Guinea is the main stronghold for their survival.
At the end of 2017, Western Chimpanzees were raised to the level of Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List - the global authority on threatened species. Please click here to read the paper where we made the case for their listing.
IUCN Regional Action Plan 2003
In 2002, I worked with Dr. Christohpe Boesch and Mohamed Bakarr and many other colleagues to hold a workshop in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire that brought together 72 of the region's leaders in chimpanzee conservation. One result of this work was an IUCN/SSC regional action plan.
