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Stronghold for endemic and threatened wildlife taxa

Yuzhou — 2022-07-26T18:16:32Z

Conserving the Greater Gola Landscape is also vital to protect its globally impor-tant wildlife. Many of Gola's species are found nowhere else in the world, and over 60 species are classified as global-ly threatened. Over 100 mammals are found in the forest, including the Vulne-rable African elephant, the Endangered pygmy hippopotamus, the Endangered western chimpanzee and the endemic and rare Jentink's duicker. The lands-cape supports 327 bird species, inclu-ding the Endangered Gola malimbe, the Endangered Timneh parrot, and the Vulnerable yellow-headed picathartes.

There are also over 600 species of but-terflies and almost 900 species of plants, as well as 43 species of amphibians, 13 species of reptiles and 31 of the avai-lable 175 species of freshwater fish are
threatened.

The unique White-necked picathartes

Yuzhou — 2022-07-26T18:14:52Z

The White-necked Picathartes (Pica-thartes gymnocephalus) is endemic to the Upper Guinea rainforests and is clas-sified as Vulnerable by BirdLife Interna-tional on the 2007 IUCN Red List. Unique ground-loving birds, they are resident in lowland forest, hill forest, and secondary scrub with large boulders and caves in-side the forest for them to use for nesting and roosting often as a colony. They fo-rage in pairs or groups on the forest floor in a strange bouncing manner and return to rock to roost communally at night.

The species now has a highly fragmented distribution, the majority of breeding co-lonies are extremely small and isolated, and many are close to the minimum for long-term viability. Forest throughout its range is disappearing rapidly, leading to further fragmentation and rapid decline of remaining populations, and trap-ping is a serious threat. A 2007 survey in GRNP, KHFR and the buffer zone found a total of 109 active nests at 35 active sites, with half the sites located outside the protected areas.

The scale and global impor- tance of the Gola Rainforest

Yuzhou — 2022-07-26T18:10:00Z

The Greater Gola Landscape is situated at the heart of the Upper Guinean biodi-versity hotspot. It is a transboundary re-gion encompassing key protected areas across Sierra Leone and Liberia: the Gola Rainforest National Park, the Gola Fo-rest National Park, the Foya Proposed Protected Area, the Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary, the Kambui Hills Forest Re-serve, as well as surrounding areas of buffer zone and community-managed forests. Together these create the largest remaining single block of the Upper Gui-nean Forest. The total size of this lands-cape is around 3500 km². The vegetation and soils of the Greater Gola Landscape is a major carbon sink of great value. In 2014, the Gola Rainforest National Park in Sierra Leone was established as the first Reducing Emissions from Defores-tation and Degradation (REDD) project in West Africa. By 2021 this will have conserved nearly 5 million tonnes of car-bon dioxide by keeping it locked in the forest and soils.