Case study 4: Monitoring of wildlife populations: lessons learned

Citation

Maisels F (2010) Case study 4: Monitoring of wildlife populations: lessons learned. In: Yanggen D, Angu K & Tchamou N (eds.) Landscape-Scale Conservation in the Congo Basin : Lessons Learned from the Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE). Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, pp. 335-343. http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/lessons_learned_chapter8_case_study4.pdf

Abstract
The biodiversity within the humid tropical forests of the world is typically about 50 percent of the global total, although they cover only 15 percent of the earth's surface. The Central African block is the second largest of these forests after Amazonia, and much of it is still unlogged, closed canopy tracts with continuous cover. These forests contain important populations of large, endangered mammal species such as forest elephant, gorilla, bonobo and chimpanzees, plus medium-sized mammal species including monkeys, forest antelopes, pigs and buffalo. In addition, the individual trees within these forests are often many hundreds of years old, and maintain a myriad of smaller species of fauna and flora, often endemic to small areas within the main forest block (although the degree of endemicity varies tremendously over the area). There have been long cycles of forest retreat and regrowth, caused by climatic cycles; at present the cycle is approaching its maximum for forest cover and would eventually take over the savannah islands within the block if not held back, up to a point, by burning.