Protecting Gola: 10 years of the REDD+ conservation project in Sierra Leone’s Gola Rainforest

In 2013, the RSPB helped to launch an ambitious partnership project to protect Gola, a unique rainforest in Sierra Leone, in order to benefit local people, protect wildlife and help fight the climate crisis. In today’s blog, Richard Dixon (Head of the Greater Gola Landscape at the RSPB) introduces us to this incredible place in West Africa and the vital work being done there.

Introducing the forest
The beautiful Gola Rainforest National Park in Sierra Leone is home to many endangered species, including charismatic birds like the White-necked Picathartes and mammals such as Diana Monkeys. Known as Sierra Leone’s ‘Green Diamond', the National Park covers an area of 71,070 ha which comprises the largest remaining area of intact, lowland rainforest anywhere in Sierra Leone.

Clouds roll over Gola’s forest canopy. © Michael Duff (rspb-images.com).

Protecting this unique forest is vital to support local communities, conserve threatened wildlife, and help to tackle climate change. In 2013, the RSPB, together with our partners in Sierra Leone, launched an ambitious 30-year project to protect the forest and improve the lives of the people living around it. This project is part of the international ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries’ (REDD+) work. 

Building on this project launch, in 2015 the not-for-profit company Gola Rainforest Conservation was founded. This organisation is formed as a partnership between the Government of Sierra Leone, the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone (CSSL), the RSPB, and the people of the seven Gola Chiefdoms.

The REDD+ project has three key objectives, agreed by the partners, which still guide this work today:

• To strengthen the protection and management of the park so that it could become a model of conservation best practice at a national and international level.
• To promote and ensure the sustainable management of natural resources by empowering local people to become the stewards of these resources.
• To establish a broad database of information covering many aspects of the forest which can be used to measure success and inform future decision-making.

People and forests are deeply connected. That’s especially true in the Gola Rainforest area of southern Sierra Leone, where most people are farmers. REDD+ projects enable people and forests to benefit at the same time, offering a financial incentive to keep the forest standing and its wildlife protected.

Gola Rainforest is one of the last remaining strongholds for White-necked Picathartes. © Ryan Wilkie/RSPB. 

Over the last eight years, we have worked tirelessly with Gola Rainforest Conservation and the forest-edge communities to find ways of protecting the forest and supporting its people. The work of this partnership is incredibly varied, from rangers patrolling the park, to building hospitals and water wells, teaching farmers to grow higher quality crops and supporting children to go to school and learn about the forest.

Improving livelihoods, improving lives
There are over 100 villages within the 4km-wide buffer zone outside the National Park and most people in these forest-edge communities are subsistence farmers. With 59.2% of Sierra Leoneans living in multidimensional poverty according to the UN, we recognise that the National Park’s forest has often been an important source of income for people in these communities, often by logging or poaching its animals.

If Gola is to be protected from logging and poaching, then farmers need to be able to earn a good livelihood through other means. That’s why we, together with our partners, have been working with thousands of farmers to help them improve their farming practices, creating better yields, higher-quality produce and ultimately, greater profit from their farms.

By enabling a good alternative income, we’re protecting the forest.

A farmer opens a cocoa pod at their farm in Golahun Community, Gola Rainforest. © Michael Duff (rspb-images.com).

Preventing deforestation and hunting
Poaching, logging, and mining are all illegal in Gola Rainforest as they cause habitat destruction and kill endangered animals. The forest rangers employed by Gola Rainforest Conservation therefore have a vital role to play. They carry out patrols to identify and prevent illegal activity and together they monitor the forest for snares, traps and mining.

A ranger washes their face while on patrol in the forest. © Michael Duff (rspb-images.com).

Supporting communities’ development
REDD+ provides funding to ensure that people’s lives are improved when the forest is protected. Through a Benefit Sharing Agreement, we worked with communities to identify what was important to them.

In consequence we started a Community Development Fund to offer funding for projects that support the whole community, from rice mills to water wells; from health centres to meeting places. Many farmers also receive an annual payment as compensation for land that they gave to the National Park.

Education is also a key priority. Every year Gola Rainforest Conservation award secondary school scholarships to cover the school fees, uniforms and school materials for at least one male and one female student from every one of the 122 forest-edge communities. Additionally, since 2013, we have been supporting a network of 39 Nature Clubs which educate local children about conservation and the importance of the forest.

Local community member using a water pump installed in a forest-edge community. © Michael Duff (rspb-images.com).

Working together to protect the forest
By working together with communities, while continuing to research and monitor the forest’s flora and fauna, we can keep protecting Gola Rainforest. Through improving farming practices, patrolling the forest, and supporting communities on their own priorities, we can help communities to thrive – and look after the forest in the process.

For example, the RSPB and Gola Rainforest Conservation are supporting local people to farm shade-grown cocoa alongside their other crops. This cocoa is processed and turned into delicious forest-friendly chocolate which is available to buy online at the RSPB Shop.

The last ten years have seen fantastic success for the project thanks to the hard work of the local communities, the partners in Sierra Leone and those supporting overseas.

Through on-going protection of the forest, Gola Rainforest Conservation is able to sell Verified Carbon Units (a form of carbon credit) which has contributed to the income required to continue the protection of this incredible place.

Furthermore, Gola Rainforest Conservation now employs over 150 local people and continues to offer training and support to communities across the Gola region. Thanks to an enormous team effort, the future of Gola is full of hope as we enter the next ten years of the project.

Yellow-casqued Hornbill, Gola Rainforest. © Ryan Wilkie/RSPB.

Acknowledgments
The Gola REDD+ project is being undertaken in partnership between the RSPB and Gola Rainforest Conservation. Gola Rainforest Conservation (GRC) is formed by the partnership of the Forestry Division of the Government of Sierra Leone, the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone (CSSL), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and the people of the seven Gola Chiefdoms.

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