Conservationists working with the official national parks agency in Côte d’Ivoire are planning to create an ecological corridor linking Taï National Park with Grebo National Park in neighboring Liberia.The corridor has support from the Ivorian village of Nigré, where residents will grow native trees alongside their crops to facilitate animal movements.Animals that will likely benefit include the bongo; like other antelopes in Taï, they are believed to play a key role in helping to disperse seeds to ensure forest regeneration.Stitching together the surviving parts of West Africa’s Upper Guinean rainforest could help ensure this ecosystem and its inhabitants thrive.
NIGRE, Côte d’Ivoire — The village of Nigré in southwestern Côte d’Ivoire sits — like much of this part of West Africa — in a landscape of rice and cassava fields, oil palm plantations and stands of rubber trees that have replaced the forests that once clothed the landscape. Chief Djahi Bertin and his attendants offer a traditional welcome to a group of scientists, conservationists and park rangers in an open-sided building in the chief’s yard.
The guests are served slices of radish-red kola nut, together with a teaspoon of ginger-colored spices, and a choice of wine, beer, spirits or soda.
