There is an urgent need for increased connectivity within natural landscapes, to maintain ecosystem processes under continued habitat loss and fragmentation. This is especially true in tropical Africa, where deforestation continues unabated under dense human populations highly depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. The urgency for increasing and maintaining connectivity in tropical Africa is exacerbated by the recent proliferation of the oil palm industry, as well as this relatively climatically stable region’s vulnerability to climate change.
The small and densely populated Republic of Rwanda is a case in point. Only 5% of the country’s original forest cover remains, which are home to endangered species such as chimpanzees. Now that Rwanda is politically more stable, these charismatic animals may start playing a major role in ecotourism, earning much-needed income to a great number of people. In an effort to ensure the persistence of the region’s Chimpanzee population, a group of United States-based undergraduate students joined forces with several Rwandan organizations to re-connect two national parks with a 30-mile corridor. The video associated with this post discusses how the group used products derived from NASA ASTER, VIRRS and Landsat satellite images to design the proposed corridor.
While much effort is still required to implement the project’s recommendations, including possible refinements to the corridor design, the study is a great illustration of applied conservation work being linked to capacity building.
