Nigeria Conservation Foundation in partnership with Wilder Institute Conservation Calgary Zoo has offered a scholarship award to four Masters’ and one PhD students of the University of Calabar to research on the Cross River Afi Mountain gorillas.
The students were awarded the scholarship to study the habits of the Cross River gorillas living in the Afi Mountain and their relationship with the locals from the communities scouring the mountain.
Speaking on Tuesday during the presentation at the 5th Park Meeting for Community Conservation Graduate Students Scholarship Program for the Conservation of the Cross River State Gorilla, the Director of Business Development and Communication of the NCF, Mr Uchenna Achunine, said the program, which was funded by Wilder Conservation Calgary Zoo, is a five-year project running from the past two years.
He said the project was designed to preserve and conserve the rare species of gorilla found only in the Afi Mountain and neighbouring Cameroon and other African countries.
Achunine, who also served as the Chairman of the Cross River Gorilla Project, explained that three out of the five students were already in the project, Ayambem Akumjom, a PhD student, Agabi David and Adekambi Adeyinka both Masters’ students and Isaac Bisong, Department of Zoology and Environmental Biology, Forestry and Wildlife Resources Management and Peace Okon Ita, Environmental and Resources Management were beneficiaries of the scholarship award.
He added, “The program is funded by the Wilder Institute Calgary Zoo in partnership with six other partners, the NCF being the foremost environmental NGO in Nigeria, we are the principal implementing partners for this program in Nigeria, other partners are the University of Calabar, being the academic institute where the program is domiciled; we also have the Centre for Biodiversity Conservation Research in Ghana as part of this project and the other partners are the Cross River National Park, the Cross River Forestry Commission and the Afi Mountain Community in Boki, who are the landlords of the project.
“It is an interesting program that we are happy to be part of because, the Cross River gorilla is one of the threatened species in Nigeria, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list and this program is designed to study their habitats and also the animal-human interaction between the human beings and the Cross River gorillas.”
The Conservative Program Manager, Wilder Institute Calgary Zoo, Dr. Mary Liao, who expressed satisfaction with the selection of beneficiaries and research work, said the whole idea was to build a sustainable capacity of local conservation researchers who hopefully would be practitioners in different conservation fields in the future.
She said, “I hope that the skills they are acquiring from their research project here will help them in the future to become leaders and I think for sure they are very interested in conserving the Cross River gorilla space.”
One of the project supervisors, Professor of Conservation Biogeography and Land Use Biodiversity to Conservation, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Calabar, Prof. Francis Bisong, applauded the organisations for initiating and awarding a scholarship program to students of the institute.
