West African Manatee Conservation
Project objectives
The goals of this project are to identify important manatee habitat use sites within three specific target areas in Senegal, Mali, and Nigeria. Secondly, the project will help implement protected areas, provide training to build community-based sighting networks and alternative livelihoods, and to increase public awareness through educational programs. This project will also continue to build capacity to enable informed grassroots conservation actions for the West African manatee, and will be used as a model for other future manatee conservation initiatives across Africa.
Threats
Habitat loss & degradation
Poaching
The key outcome of this project will be to demonstrate that local initiatives can have a significant impact on African manatee conservation. This will be the first project to address objectives of the CMS West African Manatee Action Plan on an international scale, and will serve as model for numerous other sites in Africa where manatee biologists and managers hope to implement conservation efforts in the future.
This project is implemented by Sea to Shore Alliance.
