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Conservation Issues in the Nimba Mountains

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The Chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba

Part of the book series: Primatology Monographs

Abstract

The Nimba Mountains consist of a 40-km-long scenic mountain chain, which extends along the tri-national border between Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, and Liberia. Their unique biogeographic characteristics have led to the differentiation of multiple microclimates and ecological niches, which have favored the emergence of highly diverse wildlife and landscapes. They form a varied but single ecological and anthropological entity that is torn between different administrative and protective statuses. The Nimba Mountains has benefited from an early protective status, which was favored by the numerous scientific investigations initiated in the 1940s. Threats to biodiversity, including to chimpanzees, are tightly linked to habitat destruction, which is mainly caused by increasing human pressures. The biggest challenge consists of contending with the trade-off between biodiversity preservation and local development. This realization reinforced the necessity for elaborating a global and coherent transnational program of natural resource management.

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Acknowledgments

We wish to express our sincere gratitude to Tetsuro Matsuzawa for his support and advice. We are grateful to Dora Biro and Andrew MacIntosh for their help with English corrections to this chapter. The research was financially supported by grants from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Japanese Ministry of Environment, and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science to T. Matsuzawa, and by a grant from IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, Great Ape Emergency Conservation Action Fund to N. Granier.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Behavioral Biology Unit, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Liège, Quai van Beneden, 22, 4020, Liège, Belgium

    Nicolas Granier

  2. Research Institute of EcoScience, Ewha Womans University, B 365, Science Building, 11-1 Daehyun-Dong, Seodaemun-Gu, Seoul, 120-750, Republic of Korea

    Laura Martinez

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  1. Nicolas Granier
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Correspondence to Nicolas Granier .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, 41-2 Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi, 484-8506, Japan

    Tetsuro Matsuzawa Ph.D. (Professor Director) & Yukimaru Sugiyama Ph.D. (Professor Emeritus) (Professor Director) &  (Professor Emeritus)

  2. School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, The Marlowe Building, Canterbury, CT2 7NR, UK

    Tatyana Humle Ph.D.

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Granier, N., Martinez, L. (2011). Conservation Issues in the Nimba Mountains. In: Matsuzawa, T., Humle, T., Sugiyama, Y. (eds) The Chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba. Primatology Monographs. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-53921-6_40

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