People will not care about wildlife going extinct if they can not feed their families

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From documentary screenings under the stars with rural communities to spreading awareness on an international scale…

we try to engage with anyone and everyone to tell them about Sierra Leone’s amazing biodiversity. People will not want to save what they don’t know about! We have worked with 30 communities, two primary schools, and are working on building strong connections with higher education establishments in Sierra Leone to ensure everyone has the opportunity to learn about things like Sierra Leone’s resident forest elephant population.

In 2019, with support from the British Ecological Society, Primate Partnership Fund, and the Primate Action Fund through Global Wildlife Conservation, we were able to launch the Pan Verus Project Nature Club and the Outamba Kilimi National Park Education Centre and Community Library. Along with this came wildlife documentary screenings on a portable projector in the communities living inside the national park, followed by groups discussions about wildlife and living within a protected area. Our aim is never to preach, but to encourage conversations that make people think about wildlife in a new way. One way we do this is by sharing traditional Susu stories about animals and wildlife, and encouraging cross generational discussions around wildlife that do not focus on crop loss or hunting.

Our aim isn’t to force environmentalism on anyone, but to ensure communities have sustainable options…

through skills training and providing jobs relating to conservation activities. We employ people who have never been able to gain any benefit from the national park they live next to, while providing them with transferable skills along the way. During the first few years of activities, the Pan Verus Project focused largely on research and relationship building. This makes us unique because now that we are ready to implement sustainable options, we are sure that not only will they be useful and appropriate for these specific communities, the ideas themselves come from the communities.

We conduct regular meetings with the communities we are involved in, and rather than seeking their approval for initiatives, we ask the communities what they want. Repeatedly, the most common answer we receive when we ask what kind of support the communities want, job skills training and employment opportunities for youths are requested. People actively lament the fact that the only jobs available to them where they can earn cash income are illegal, and often dangerous, jobs like gold mining in the river with hippopotamus, or hauling logs. People often find themselves exploited due to their need to cash to help support medical bills, school fees, or just to supplement what they grow on their farms and will work for the equivalent of only a few cents a day.

We support opportunities for people to learn the skills they want to help them start their own businesses, without relying on the exploitation that comes with exporting natural resources.

We are working hand-in-hand with community members to find long-term solutions that make everyone happy.

We want to end the stigmatisation around the foods people eat. While unsustainable hunting doesn’t help anyone, we also understand that people all around the world commonly hunt things like wild deer or fowl to supplement their diet, and the people of Sierra Leone are no different. Through our research we have discovered that conservation issues that happen around hunting and wildlife in Northern Sierra Leone, often focus on the fact that farmers loose a significant amount of their crops annually to wildlife.

These farmers are not growing commercial crops, they are growing the food that they need to fill their children’s bellies. When a troop of baboons or a herd of elephants leave the national park, they run the risk of searching for food in farmers fields. This is largely due to large scale habitat loss and disturbance. While much of that is out of our control, we can work with farmers to find the best (and least harmful) methods of crop protection.

This is safer not only for wildlife, but for humans too, who can get hurt defending their crops or whose family members must all take turns staying up all night to watch the fields. We are currently working with farmers and community members on the edge of the Outamba Kilimi National Park to monitor and measure how much crop loss is experienced by exactly what kind of wildlife. We will use this information to plan specifically designed solutions to the issues being faced by these farmers, rather than relying on data and trial runs from different countries and environments.

A major part of ensuring our work is community driven is using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods. We use PRA to accurately assess the needs and desires of the communities where we work before engaging in any livelihood activities. By engaging in different activities like participatory observation in the villages, engaging in conversations where the community members are teaching us their refined knowledge about the environment, and what is of key importance to them, and participatory community mapping, we can ensure that the community is heavily involved the design of any activities supported by the Pan Verus Project.

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We weave ethical and multidisciplinary research into every aspect of our work

Motion sensor cameras are good for more than just monitoring wildlife.

We not only seek permission from all community leaders, but keep the entire community informed and aware of any research activities we have ongoing. Prior to bringing motion sensor cameras (commonly referred to as camera traps) into the far interior of Outamba Kilimi National Park, we visited each village inside the park twice with cameras to show people, incorporated the cameras into fun activities with children and showed videos of the wildlife living in the park that was seen on the cameras. Building trust and breaking down suspicion about our activities is a number one priority for the Pan Verus Project.

In addition to using the camera traps for educational and outreach purposes we also are using 55 camera traps to monitor keystone species like big cats, elephants, and chimpanzees, but we are also conducting the first mammalian species assemblage in the park in 40 years. This is important because Sierra Leone’s landscape has changed drastically over the last few decades since the park was created, and already species which scientists believe extinct from the area have been recorded.

Using camera traps allows us to watch wildlife from a safe distance. We do not encourage habituation (allowing wildlife to get accustomed to human presence) of any wildlife inside the park, as it can make animal easier for poachers to hunt, so these small and unobtrusive cameras give us a glimpse into the lives of undisturbed wildlife. We see everything from palm civets napping to new and unusual primate behaviour.

Follow us on Instagram to see more images from our camera traps