Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve

• Lack of Management Plan;
• Lack of funding;
• Poaching;
• New railway;
• Mining;
• Proposed reduction of the protected area;
• Refugees from Liberia

Fauna & Flora International (FFI) has informed IUCN and the Centre that the Second Tri-National Workshop on the Transboundary Management of the Environment of the Nimba Mountains, was held in N’Zerekore, Guinea, from 12 to 15 February, 2002.  This meeting represented the second stage of a process initiated in collaboration with the three countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Liberia, all of which are now States Parties to the Convention, with Liberia acceding to the Convention on 28 March 2002) by three international environmental NGOs; namely Fauna & Flora International, Conservation International and BirdLife International - with financial support from the World Heritage Fund, the Headquarters of Rio Tinto Mining Plc. and the Netherlands’ Committee for IUCN. The long-term goals of this process are to achieve cooperation for the conservation of the Nimba Mountains, prepare a common management strategy, and create a tri-national biosphere reserve of the Mountains. Consensus was reached at the workshop on clear work priorities for the period March 2002 – February 2003 as follows:

·  Agreement for a tri-national framework agreement, to be legally binding, to permit transboundary field work.  This agreement has been drafted and sent to each of the three countries for comment.  The objective of the agreement is to permit field technicians to collaborate and pursue work across international boundaries in support of management of the wider ecosystem according to mutually agreed work programmes.  To conclude this tri-national agreement, a third tri-national meeting with restricted participation is hoped to take place in Monrovia, Liberia, during the second half of 2002;

·  Resolution of the ambiguity in the boundaries of the Dere-Tiapleu Forests between Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. The disagreement over this forest area between Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea has threatened to accelerate local forest loss and undermine good relations between local authorities who need to collaborate not only for the protection of that Forest, but also for the overall conservation of the World Heritage site.

Other priorities include the preparation of phased proposals/action plans for tri-national monitoring of fauna, flora, hydrology, meteorology and land-use cover, and tri-national collaboration for certain management activities (fire management, control of poaching, etc.). The implementation of these will depend in part upon signing the tripartite framework agreement.  Workshop participants produced the Declaration of N’Zerekore on the Tri-National Management of the Nimba Mountains which proposes the establishment of a tri-national steering mechanism for transboundary management activities and the submission to each respective government of a legal framework agreement for such international collaboration.  The CEGEN in Guinea, the Directorate for the Protection of Nature (DPN) of Côte d‘Ivoire and the National Environmental Commission of Liberia (NECOLIB) will be responsible for leading this process in their respective countries  The workshop participants also proposed that FFI be responsible for ensuring the continued coordination of these activities, along with the lead agency in each country, and with BirdLife International and Conservation International being responsible for selected technical and logistical questions.

UNDP-Conakry has informed the Centre that the preparation of a GEF Project document for the conservation of the Mt. Nimba ecosystem has progressed satisfactorily and UNESCO is collaborating with UNDP, CEGEN-Conakry and the NGO partners to initiate dialogue with suitable donors like the European Union, to satisfy co-financing requirements of the prospective GEF grant.