Review of the protected area network in Guinea, West Africa, and recommendations for new sites for biodiversity conservation

Abstract

With only five protected areas dedicated to the conservation of biodiversity (two national parks, one strict nature reserve and two faunal reserves), Guinea has one of the smallest protected area networks in West Africa. As a result, two of the five ecoregions of the country and six of the 14 globally threatened large and medium-sized mammals occurring in Guinea are not found in the national protected area network. To identify areas with high biodiversity that could be included in the national protected area network, we used the Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA) methodology. We devised a scoring system to rank the identified KBAs according to their relative conservation significance. We identified a total of 16 KBAs throughout the country. Their proclamation as protected areas would result in the protection of all ecoregions and all but one of Guinea's globally threatened large and medium-sized mammals. Twelve of the 16 KBAs have the legal status of classified forest, a status that should facilitate the change into formal biodiversity protected areas (IUCN category I-IV). Our analysis indicates that even if only the two areas with the highest conservation significance score, the Ziama and Diécké forests, become formal protected areas, this would provide protection to both the western Guinean lowland forests, one of the most threatened ecoregions in Africa, and to 11 of the 14 threatened large and medium-sized mammals occurring in Guinea.

A Short Review of the International Trade of Wild Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles Across the World and Throughout Two Decades

“…A lack of marine protected areas in Guinea was noted, resulting in insufficient protection of Hippocampus and other fishes (Brugiere and Kormos, 2008). The Guinean Fisheries Code from 1995 prohibits the use of explosives and toxins for fishing (Guinea, 1995).…”

Representativeness of terrestrial ecosystems in Chile's protected area system

“…Using ecoregions as classification units at the global scale (Dinerstein et al 1995;Olson & Dinerstein 2002), zones of high biodiversity and endemism have been identified globally (Myers et al 2000;Mittermeier et al 2004;Kier et al 2005;Lamoreaux et al 2006), and their protected status evaluated (Hoekstra et al 2005). Several studies have applied representativeness assessment for setting conservation priorities at global (Chape et al 2003(Chape et al , 2005Rodrigues et al 2004a, Jenkins & Joppa 2009) and country or regional scales (Powell et al 2000;Sierra et al 2002;Arango et al 2003;Armenteras et al 2003;Oldfield et al 2004;Dietz & Czech 2005;López & Zambrana-Torrelio 2006;Soutullo & Gudynas 2006;Maiorano et al 2007;Schulman et al 2007;Brugiere & Kormos 2009;Wiersma & Nudds 2009). Representativeness has also been used as a fundamental criterion for prioritizing areas for systematic conservation planning (Davey 1998;Margules & Pressey 2000;Groves 2003;Molnar et al 2004;Pressey 2004).…”

Anticipating novel conservation risks of increased human access to remote regions with warming

“…In tropical West Africa, for instance, it is estimated that elevating the status of 12 of 16 existing key biodiversity areas to IUCN category I-IV sites would enhance the protection of 13 of 14 threatened species of large mammals endemic to that region [38]. We also focus here primarily on mammals of cultural and conservation interest in the Arctic and Tropics.…”