PSG Publishes Action Plan for the Cross River Gorilla

The Cross River gorilla, Gorilla gorilla diehli, is the world's rarest great ape — barely 300 survive in a patchwork of hillside forests on the border of Nigeria and Cameroon. Critically endangered from habitat loss and bushmeat hunting, the remaining Cross River gorillas are surrounded by some of the densest human settlements in Africa. With their meager population splintered across the landscape, they are the most threatened of all gorillas, and in urgent need of immediate and sustained conservation action.

A comprehensive plan to ensure their survival has just been published by the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group, drawing on the expertise of a team of conservationists, gorilla researchers and local government officials. Their recommendations, based on a series of workshops held in Nigeria and Cameroon, follow a range-wide approach to addressing the array of threats facing the Cross River gorillas. The Cross River Gorilla Action Plan summarizes their current status and distribution at the 11 sites where they are known to exist, and provides itemized recommendations on both a regional and site-specific basis. Taken as a whole, these recommendations represent a consensus strategy for helping the Cross River gorillas maintain a viable population in the years ahead.

A medium-resolution PDF of the full plan is available below. For hardcopies, please contact John Aguiar at j.aguiar {at} conservation.org.

Regional Action Plan for the Conservation of the Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) - 2.51 MB