Sierra Leone and Guinea share what has been identified as a “key landscape for conservation”. This is the Outamba Kilimi National Park, Kuru Hills Forest Reserve in Sierra Leone and the Pinselli and Soyah Classified Forests in Guinea (OKKPS).

These forests are part of the Guinean Forest-Savanna Mosaic Ecoregion, a unique blend of forested areas and savannas, creating a diverse and dynamic landscape. This is a region where grassland, woodland and moist broadleaf forest intermingle.

The beauty of this region must be protected and this is what the EU is doing in collaboration with the Government of Sierra Leone and its implementing partners.

The projects involves several stakeholders that play a role in the management of the OKKPS landscape. The aim is to improve the forest management in a sustainable way, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation as well as biodiversity loss. By doing so, the project is also helping combating climate change and its devastating impacts.

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Achievement of the project and future activities

So far the project has achieved:

-       to fight illegal wildlife trafficking, the National Protected Area Authority and the Guinean Office of National Parks and Wildlife Reserves have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen transboundary collaboration. 

-       Landscape activities are now coordinated

-       In 2023, the project offered support to 670 community members, including 340 women, to improve livelihoods in various sectors such as vegetable gardening, agriculture, and apiculture;

-       Thanks to the project the presence of threatened and endangered species such as the chimpanzee and elephant have been confirmed.

-       Environmental education programmes have been put in place. This includes 27 Cercles  d’écoute that reached 1,044 persons (465 of which were women), an environmental education program in six schools for 267 children,  a theatre tour with the participation of 1,972 persons in 20 villages, and 228 radio broadcasts

-       To protect the are from wildfire the project created 72 kilometres of firebreaks, resulting in the protection of 93.5 – 95.5 % of gallery and open forests from wildfire-causing damage during the 2022-2023 fire season.

Finally thanks to the project it will be possible to monitor the impact caused by the construction of the railway which passes through the future Pinselli-Soyah-Sabouyah national park.

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