A Game Changer for Mole National Park

The control room at Mole National Park is staffed 24 hours a day, with analysts monitoring real-time data that pinpoints humans and wildlife sightings in the vast expanse. Information is communicated to rangers on patrol by smart phone, with GPS coordinates, so teams can investigate anomalies and illegal activity on the ground.

Located at the heart of Ghana’s Northern Savannah, the 4,600 square kilometer park is the country’s largest protected area and the country’s most important habitat for elephants – 590 according to the latest park survey in 2019 - especially for safe passage in their migration between Ghana and Burkina Faso. Mole National Park, rich in biodiversity and ecotourism potential, is home to over 90 animal and 300 bird species.

The protected area, which was established as a game reserve in colonial times and formalized as a park around the time of Ghana’s independence faces significant threats, with poaching being the number one. Monitoring key species is crucial to the very existence of the park and a critical challenge that the Wildlife Division of the Ghana Forestry Commission, managers of the park, need to handle by the hour.

For decades, park rangers trekked the park with notebooks and pencils, attempting to gather data to manage the biodiversity and control poaching. By the time they reached footprints to encampments, crimes had already occurred. Adequate records also became difficult to maintain with paper-based inputs.

Recent World Bank support is helping the park with its twenty-first century transition of using technology to protect wildlife and nature. The work stems from the Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining Project (GLRSSMP)¹ a World Bank program, with funding from PROGREEN and the Global Environment Facility, that is supporting the Government of Ghana and its Wildlife Division with wildlife monitoring approaches. First, the team had, in consultation with local stakeholders, to understand park issues and wildlife monitoring objectives. Once the needs were identified, the Wildlife Division decided to pilot Earth Ranger² – a technology platform that integrates and displays real-time wildlife monitoring data.

Of course, it is not the software by itself that elevates conservation efforts. “You must employ your men and women in the field to collect information and make sure illegal wildlife offenders are warded off or apprehended,” Park Manager Ali Mahama says. “The rangers tell us that they feel more protected, and safer in the field. It is possible to avoid conflicts before they happen.”

The use of the new monitoring equipment and World Bank supported staff training is leading to a more sophisticated level of wildlife monitoring, conservation and evidence-based knowledge that helps ensure the future of Mole National Park.

“Our hope is to extend this work to other national parks and the biological corridors,” Isaac C. Acquah, Jr., Project Coordinator for the GLRSSMP adds.

Over time, the park management expects improved knowledge on pressures facing the park. While poaching is the most severe threat, there are other issues such as cattle grazing in the northern side of the park. So far, logging has not been a major issue.

¹ The Ghana Landscape Restoration and Small-Scale Mining Project aims to strengthen integrated natural resource management and increase benefits to communities in targeted savannah and cocoa forest landscapes. The project is funded by the World Bank / International Development Association credit of US$75 million, with leveraged grant financing in the amount of approximately US$28 million from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the PROGREEN Trust Fund, and the Extractives Global Programmatic Support Trust Fund.  The project has two main implementing agencies: The Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) represented by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), responsible for landscape restoration activities, and Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources (MLNR), responsible for formalization of ASM.

² EarthRanger is a technology platform and software that integrates real-time data and combines them with field reports. Along with wildlife movement, human activity and vehicle activity, EarthRanger can detect landslides, traps and settlements.