The Buabeng - Fiema Monkey Sanctuary, Ghana

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Introduction

The villages of Ghana have a long tradition of maintained sacred groves, protected areas of forest that have a strong religious significance. Traditionally, it is bad luck, or worse, to clear sacred groves or hunt animals within them. But this tradition has an ecological context. The groves are sanctuaries for wildlife such as monkeys and antelope, and protect soils, water supplies and the local climate, all important to local livelihoods.

By one count, there are still more than a thousand sacred groves in Ghana. Many are now islands of forest amid farmland. They are under increasing threat as villagers need ever more land to feed their growing populations. But now, in an unusual merging of traditional and state law, villagers in central Ghana are trying to revive them.

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Setting the Scene

The villages of Buabeng, Fiema and Dotobaa are in the region of Brong-Ahafo in the heart of Ghana. This region forms part of the "transitional zone" between the country's coastal rainforests and its dry grassland interior. The natural forests here are prone to fire and many have been cleared for farming, though many farmers plant their own trees to grow fruit, timber and medicines.

In these villages, as in most of rural Ghana, almost everyone grows crops even if they have another job. Typical is Suzanna Akua Kra, traditional birth attendant in Buabeng, who also spend part of her day In the Fields, growing food crops for the table and for sale in the market. In recent years, farmers began clearing plots in the sacred groves themselves.

Some disapproved. As Mr Gjan, a farmer and health worker in Dotobaa puts it: farmers know that their crops grow better on fields close to forests, that fields close to forests suffer less from weeds, and water stays longer in the soil through the dry season. But for some, it was tempting to farm the land in the sacred groves, despite this.

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Taking action

Some years ago Daniel Kwaku Akowuah, a teacher in Buabeng, devised a plan to save the sacred grove between Buabeng and Fiema villages. His idea was to combine the ancient tradition of sacred groves with a modern conservation initiative by creating an animal reserve, which would attract tourists.

Among the people of local villages, the spirituality of their sacred grove is strongly associated with two species of monkey that live in the grove: the mona monkey and the black and white colobus. So Daniel persuaded the local district assembly to create the Buabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary on 80 hectares at the heart of the 4.5-square-kilometre sacred grove. Bylaws gave the village powers to arrest anybody who cut down trees in the grove or killed the monkeys, and for the district court to impose fines.

The new laws were not popular at first. There were arrests and court convictions. One timber company tried to bribe Daniel to allow tree felling. But most villagers supported protection of the grove and its estimated 350 monkeys, especially when they saw they could attract tourists. Today the sanctuary has become a tourist attraction, with a guest house and a listing in the popular Rough Guides sold all over the world.

Daniel says villagers regard the monkeys as a good omen, and he is convinced that it is this spiritual aspect, combined with its economic value, that underpins the success of the sanctuary.

Now, says Paul Sarfo-Mensah, a researcher from the University of Science and Technology in the town of Kumasi in Ghana who has studied attitudes to the reserve, the idea is spreading. Villagers in nearby Dotobaa are reviving a sacred spring in a forest where monkeys and other animals have disappeared. Mr Gjan is cleaning rotting leaves from the lake round the spring -- an activity accompanied by traditional rituals. If he is successful, he believes the wild animals will return. One day, he says, maybe even the lions will come back.

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The cast

"When we get the forest, there will be wonders here again" -- Mr Gjan, community health motivator and farmer in Dotobaa

• Daniel Kwaku Akowuah, teacher and farmer in Buabeng, who set up the monkey reserve.
• Suzanna Akua Kra, traditional birth attendant and farmer in Buabeng.
• Paul Sarfo-Mensah, researcher into community forests, University of Science and Technology, Kumasi.

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Global Relevance

Forests are under pressure in many parts of the world. And many of the traditions of forest protection are fading, undermined by modern economic and political trends. But while farmers are often blamed for the loss of forests, they can hold the key to their protection. For farmers know well the value of forests in sustaining their farming and providing other vital resources. And forests have a central place in their traditions.

Not all forests can be protected, but villagers need them for their ecological value -- as sources of timber and wild foods and medicines, and as environmental stabilisers, protecting water resources. They also need them on a spiritual level. Many rural communities now seek ways to reassert the communal need for forests in a modern setting. The Buabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary provides an interesting example of combining ancient and modern law to meet those needs.

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Thinking points

• Farms in forest zones often need trees to thrive.
• Sacred groves serve ecological and economic as well as spiritual needs. They can be vital to rural livelihoods.
• Conservation need not be a government initiative. Villages can take the lead, and other villages can copy them.
• Ancient traditions can provide modern incomes

Research on the Buabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary was funded by the UK Higher Education Funding Council.

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In the Field is a collaboration between the BBC World Service and the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich, supported by the Rural Livelihoods Department of the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID)