The River Zoo Farm Fauna Sanctuary

Since 2001 River Zoo farm is operating its own private fauna sanctuary on it's own which is about 200 hectares we is closed off by wire. We leave it completely untouched and do not take wood or other forest products from it. It is fully protected against entering, hunting or fruit collecting. We have to pay special attention each year against fire protection as there is always a risk from forest fires started outside of the reserve. The whole area is controlled by official forest officers supplied by the wildlife department. Since 2004 an official decision from the minister declared it an official fauna protection area.

It is beautiful to see how fast the population of fauna is raising in this area. In 2004 we counted more than 280 species of bird, most of which are breeding there and many species of reptile and mammal. The reason for this is in the surrounding forest outside of the reserve there is strong hunting by the population and bush burning to help aid in the hunting. Within our fauna reserve we even have high concentrations of species considered rare which shows us we are going things right!

- Deep inside the reserve -

Our reserve is more than likely the only protection area actually working in Guinea Bissau. Of course there are many other "Parks" or "Reserves" created by plenty of money and funding from orginisations like the IUCN, though none of these are actually working as expected. The main reason for this is that these projects are not accepted by the local population. You can't tell these people to stop hunting, to stop growing rice or taking wood which really means to stop existing. Some of these specialist organistations don't care about the property of the population or their rights and existence. Of course these organisations tell the local population about there Biosphere projects and about the rare plants in the area but they don't tell them how to feed their children.

River Zoo Farm bought the area of the reserve legally from the population so they accept what we are doing and just see us as closing off our own back yard rather than stealing natural resources from them. We have a very good relationship with the local population and they see the need for protection and are always interested to learn about their native species. We are working together for the protection of the fauna and flora.

We don't care if the local director of IUCN told us "you have no right to do this". Our project is confirmed by the minister, accepted by the local population and is working very well. So of course the annoys these none government fauna protection organisations as with all there money they have not yet managed to do something like this and probably never will in Guinea-Bissau.