Kakum National Park Research Articles

Hyperspectral lidar for monitoring high-resolution activity patterns of African stingless bee species

BackgroundStingless bees are vital pollinators and honey producers in the tropics. Research on stingless bees is generally underrepresented compared to the western honeybees, and while stingless bee studies from some regions are reported, there is a particular lack of reports on the species endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa. Since conventional entomological methods such as mark-recapture and radar harmonic tags suffer from limited observation counts and amount to a significant payload, fluorescent powder tagging offers a promising alternative to understanding their behavior. We deploy a hyperspectral fluorescence lidar monitors a 25-mm-wide transect in front of the hives.ResultsDuring a 1 day study at the International Stingless Bee Center, near Kakum National Park, Ghana, 17,862 insects were observed with the lidar, of which 7520 were tagged with fluorescent dyes. Approximately half of the bees from the selected hives were successfully tagged, with an estimated misclassification of 1%. According to our limited data, the observed species, Meliponula bocandei and the Dactylurina staudingeri exhibited different activity patterns. D. staudingeri displayed a half-hour longer active day, with clear crepuscular activity peaks. In contrast, M. bocandei activity was diurnal, with less pronounced crepuscular peaks.ConclusionsWe demonstrate how hyperspectral fluorescence lidar can monitor powder-tagged insects throughout the day. The monitored species revealed distinct activity patterns over the day. Our findings highlight the potential of this technology as a valuable tool for understanding insect behavior and environmental preferences of species, in situ, which could potentially give clues of response to climate changes of these critical species.

Dimensions of Visitor Satisfaction at Attractions: A Study of Kakum National Park, Ghana

Abstract Attractions are crucial in contributing to the overall satisfaction of visitors in tourism, and ensuring the satisfaction of visitors is key to the sustenance of attractions at destinations. Therefore, this study sought to ascertain the extent to which visitors are satisfied with the service dimensions at Kakum National Park (KNP), and to ascertain whether service dimensions vary with visitors’ socio-demographic characteristics. The study adopted a cross-sectional field survey and sampled 367 respondents for data collection using a questionnaire. Data were analysed via the mean scores and standard deviation. Independent t-tests and ANOVA were used to explore the difference between dimensions of satisfaction and socio-demographic characteristics of visitors. The study found that some satisfaction dimensions at the KNP in the Central region of Ghana vary with certain socio-demographic characteristics of visitors, namely age, continent of origin and level of education, at p-value ≤ 0.05. Visitors were found to be satisfied with all measured dimensions except the price. The study therefore recommends that the management of the attractions adopt conscious service strategies to enrich the experience of visitors in order to ensure better value for their money. This study’s findings expand knowledge about visitor satisfaction and how satisfaction dimensions vary with socio-demographic characteristics at destinations.

Termite diversity is resilient to land‐use change along a forest‐cocoa intensification gradient in Ghana, West Africa

AbstractCocoa is an important crop for Ghana's economy, contributing 25% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The crop, however, is mainly cultivated on forest‐derived soils and is a major cause of land‐use change. Termites are an important biological component of tropical ecosystems providing numerous ecosystem services. Previous studies have indicated that termites are sensitive to forest disturbance and decrease in richness and abundance across land‐use intensification gradients, with consequences for the essential services that they provide. Native shade trees are often used to improve cocoa cultivation and may reduce the detrimental effects of land‐use change on some aspects of biodiversity. The aim of this study was therefore to explore how termites respond to land‐use change along a shade‐tree gradient in Kakum National Park and surrounding cocoa farms in Ghana (from forest at 80% tree cover to cocoa with no shade cover, to the extreme of cultivated arable crop land). It was predicted that termite richness and abundance would decrease with decreasing shade cover, and with increasing distance from the forest edge. Thirty‐four species from 29 genera were sampled, with Ancistrotermes crucifer being found in all the locations (47% of all encounters). Species richness and abundance differed marginally across the land‐use gradient, as well as the distance from the forest edge; however, species richness did not show any significance with distance. All the same, termite communities were robust to the disturbance. Our findings suggest that though site influenced species richness and abundance, cocoa trees can play a crucial role in maintaining biodiversity and environmental quality in an agricultural landscape by providing a habitat for forest species that are not found in pastures or farm fields. However, we caution that the relatively low forest baseline of existing forest diversity may inflate the value of cocoa land, with those forests no longer representing undisturbed natural habitats: this highlights that shifting baselines may need to be accounted for when interpreting findings in the Anthropocene.

Visitor perceptions of the roles of tour guides in Kakum National Park in Ghana

Visitor perceptions of the roles of tour guides in Kakum National Park in Ghana

Roles of institutions in empowering residents towards sustainable ecotourism in Ghana: insights from Kakum National Park and Bobiri Forest and Butterfly Sanctuary

Most tourism destinations in developing countries are owned and controlled by the government, with some level of support from the private sector. However, the roles of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and public and private institutions in empowering residents towards sustainable ecotourism have received less attention in the literature. Providing human, psychological, social, economic, political, and environmental empowerment is crucial for achieving sustainable ecotourism. This study addresses this knowledge gap by employing a qualitative approach to investigate the phenomenon. It was observed that the NGOs, public and private institutions engaged residents in certain activities. However, these activities are not adequate to result in residents' empowerment. The study recommends that the public sector enact policies, strategies, and frameworks that can drive institutions to empower residents to ensure ecotourism sustainability. This study contributes to ecotourism knowledge as it combines six forms of empowerment that have practical policy implications for residents' empowerment towards sustainable ecotourism.

Roles of institutions in empowering residents towards sustainable ecotourism in Ghana: insights from Kakum National Park and Bobiri Forest and Butterfly Sanctuary

Roles of institutions in empowering residents towards sustainable ecotourism in Ghana: insights from Kakum National Park and Bobiri Forest and Butterfly Sanctuary

Tertiary students’ motivation for leisure travel: implications for domestic tourism

ABSTRACT Much of the research on motivation for leisure in developing countries have focused on other aspects of the concept, creating a dearth of research on tertiary student motivation for leisure travel. The study used 300 tertiary students sampled at the Kakum National Park and the Cape Coast Castle. ‘Escapist motive’ was the most dominant motivation for leisure travel. Males were found to be influenced by social motives than females; those aged between 20-25 years as well as those above 30 years were influenced by escapist motive whilst older students were influenced by social motives. First year students were influenced by social motives. Implications for students’ motivation for leisure travel are discussed.

Prospects of Agroforestry as Climate-smart Agricultural Strategy in Cocoa Landscapes: Perspectives of Farmers in Ghana

Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) is increasingly being promoted by the international community to help farmers adapt to climate change and lift them out of poverty. An essential technique that is promoted under the climate- mitigating smart agriculture policy package to reduce forest loss is agroforestry—the planting of woody plants or trees into farming systems. Integrating agroforesty into cocoa landscapes, it is argued, create forest-like habitats which serves as faunal refuges, sequester carbon and therefore contribute to increasing agricultural productivity, resilience (adaptation) and removal of greenhouse gas emissions. This article uses a qualitative data collected from 100 households in seven communities around the Kakum National Park in the Twifo Hemang Lower Denkyira District in Ghana, where a climate-smart agriculture programme is being piloted. The study analysed the extent of willingness of farmers to participate in interventions that promote increased adoption of agroforestry in cocoa landscapes. The result shows that though farmers have favourable perception about the role of agroforestry on cocoa systems, and are willing to adopt the practice, this does not automatically translate into their willingness to participate in agroforestry program that was asking them to extend the number of trees currently maintained on their cocoa landscapes. The study further reveals that size of farms, the age and height of cocoa trees, extension support and the general ecology of the cocoa varieties as some of the reasons influencing whether the agroforestry practices promoted could be adopted or not.

A safety and security audit of the Kakum National Park

Although Safety and Security (SnS) is a popular theme in the existing literature, the narrative has mostly focused on the broader destination and relatively, little is known of the SnS situation at the level of the individual components. This paper sought to appraise the safety and security situation at Ghana’s most visited attraction- the Kakum National Park, using a heuristic adaptation of the World Tourism Organization’s safety and security checklist. Through observations and interviews with management, an assessment of the safety and security situation at KNP was undertaken. It was found that even though safety and security measures at the park are generally inadequate, management does not consider the park to be under any real threat. The study also found that the Park management had a deliberative assessment of the security situation which reflected in three mindsets of collective security, passiveness and cautious security. The study recommends a change in philosophical outlook from passiveness to proactivity as an important first step towards making the KNP safer. Along with this philosophy, change would be the specific interventions in the areas of documentation, equipment and training.

Diversity, Abundance and Distribution of Birds In and Around Kakum National Park in Respect to Habitat Type

Diversity, Abundance and Distribution of Birds In and Around Kakum National Park in Respect to Habitat Type

Insights into the safety and security expressions of visitors to the Kakum National Park: Implications for management

While a great number of studies have explored issues of safety and security, the extant literature has tended to focus rather on the destination as an aggregate to the detriment of understanding safety and security issues at the micro-level of individual attractions. This paper sought to assess visitors' perceptions of safety and security at the Kakum National Park, Ghana. A total of 387 visitors were chosen using the convenience sampling technique over a two- month period. It emerged that respondents’ views were mainly split between the two extremes of being safe-secure or unsafe/insecure but opinions tilted slightly toward the latter. Again, visitors’ constructions of safety and security were essentially need-driven and statistically associated with age and continent of origin. The study recommends provision of adequate safety and security measures and comprehensive safety and security guidelines carved out from the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Destination Safety framework of 1996.

Monitoring forest cover change within different reserve types in southern Ghana.

Rapid population and economic growth quickly degrade and deplete forest resources in many developing countries, even within protected areas. Monitoring forest cover change is critical for assessing ecosystem changes and targeting conservation efforts. Yet the most biodiverse forests on the planet are also the most difficult to monitor remotely due to their frequent cloud cover. To begin to reconcile this problem, we develop and implement an effective and efficient approach to mapping forest loss in the extremely cloud-prevalent southern Ghana region using dense time series Landsat 7 and 8 images from 1999 to 2018, based on median value temporal compositing of a novel vegetation index called the spectral variability vegetation index (SVVI). Resultant land-cover and land-use maps yielded 90 to 94% mapping accuracies. Our results indicate 625km2 of forest loss within the 9800-km2 total mapping area, including within forest reserves and their environs between circa 2003 and 2018. Within the reserves, reduced forest cover is found near the reserve boundaries compared with their interiors, suggesting a more degraded environment near the edge of the protected areas. A fully protected reserve, Kakum National Park, showed little forest cover change compared with many other less protected reserves (such as a production reserve-Subri River). Anthropogenic activities, such as mining, agriculture, and built area expansion, were the main land-use transitions from forest. The reserves and census districts that are located near large-scale open pit mining indicated the most drastic forest loss. No significant correlation was found between the magnitudes of forest cover change and population density change for reserves and within a 1.5-km buffer surrounding the reserves. While other anthropogenic factors should be explored in relation to deforestation, our qualitative analysis revealed that reserve protection status (management policies) appears to be an important factor. The mapping approach described in this study provided a highly accurate and effective means to monitor land-use changes in forested and cloud-prone regions with great promise for application to improved monitoring of moist tropical and other forests characterized by high cloud cover.

Visitor satisfaction at Kakum National Park in Ghana

ABSTRACTProtected areas have a strong appeal to visitors seeking experience in natural settings. In satisfying visitors, managers need to understand their expectations and the experiences as a basis for providing a satisfactory experience for them. These experiences can be influenced by some aspects of protected areas such as the presence of charismatic species, and the attractiveness of the landscape, which constitutes the attributes that generally affect the satisfaction of visitors. Despite the growing importance of protected area tourism, little attention has been paid to visitor satisfaction based on their evaluation of the quality of the attributes. This paper aims at investigating visitors’ perception of the quality of the attributes of a protected area in order to identify those attributes that contribute to visitor satisfaction. Using Kakum National Park in Ghana, a survey was administered to 191 visitors to indicate their perceptions on the importance and performance of the attributes, using systematic sampling, over a period of four weeks. The study revealed that culture and natural setting were found to be important to the visitors. However, a generally poor performance of a range of attributes undermines visitor satisfaction. Management interventions in improving cultural and natural experiences are critical to visitor satisfaction.

Uncontrolled hunting and habitat degradation decimate and extirpate forest hornbills in Ghana, West Africa

Tropical forests are on the front lines of the current global extinction crisis. Species with restricted habitat requirements and slow reproductive rates, such as the spectacular hornbills (Bucerotidae) of the Paleotropics, are particularly vulnerable. We present the first long-term quantitative population assessment of nine forest hornbill species in Ghana, part of the Upper Guinea forest biodiversity hotspot in West Africa. From 1990 to 2009, hornbill encounter rates declined with 32–88% across eight species found in the region. Seven separate surveys between 1990 and 2014 indicated declines in at least six of eight species detected, with large-bodied species hardest hit. Depleted remnant populations of large hornbills mainly persist in two large and relatively well-protected wildlife reserves, Ankasa Resource Reserve and Kakum National Park. Contrastingly, the five largest species of the nine hornbills known to Bia Biosphere Reserve, one of Ghana's few forest wildlife reserves, apparently vanished completely since the 1990s, mainly due to uncontrolled hunting. Similarly, several large hornbills have disappeared from forest reserves where hunting is widespread. We conclude that uncontrolled hunting is the major driver of the recent drastic declines and population extirpations of large hornbills, while reductions in small insectivorous species may be related to extensive fragmentation and habitat disturbances of the Ghanaian forest biome. We call for urgent conservation action to prevent further declines and impending extirpations of forest hornbills and other wildlife in West Africa.

A new species of Charinus (Amblypygi: Charinidae) from Ghana, with notes on West African whip spiders

The fauna of whip spiders (Amblypygi) in Western Africa is poorly known but probably diverse. Here, I describe the new speciesCharinuskakumsp. n.based on female morphology, and accompanied by DNA sequence data. The species is small and differs from other African species ofCharinusin the low number of pseudosegments on leg IV, female genital features, spination patterns of the pedipalp, and small body size. It was collected from wet tropical rainforest in Kakum National Park, Ghana and is only the fourth species ofCharinusto be recorded from the highly diverse Western African biodiversity hotspot. With a total body length of not even 6 mm it is also one of the smallest whip spiders in the world.

Ecotourism Potential in Alleviating Rural Poverty: The Case of Kakum National Park in Ghana

Ecotourism Potential in Alleviating Rural Poverty: The Case of Kakum National Park in Ghana

A structural decompositional analysis of eco-visitors’ motivations, satisfaction and post-purchase behaviour

ABSTRACTA series of studies have demonstrated the relevance of visitors’ motivation, satisfaction and post-consumption behaviour to sustainable management of attractions, but existing knowledge on the intricate causal relationships among these issues in the context of eco-tourism is limited. Using data from 342 visitors to the Kakum National Park in Ghana and a structural equation modelling approach, this study advances understanding of the intersecting relationships, both at aggregate and at disaggregate levels, among eco-visitors’ motivation, satisfaction and future behaviour. The ensued results not only confirm but also offer unique insights into the hypothesis that specific expectations, which are mirrored in travel motivations, matter to specific satisfaction evaluations with consumptions experiences and downstream effects on future behaviour. However, these causal relationships are not uniform after controlling for eco-visitors’ sex, educational attainment and marital status. Implications of the results to theory and sustainable practice in eco-tourism settings have been discussed.

Benefits and Challenges of Community-Based Ecotourism in Park-Fringe Communities: The Case of Mesomagor of Kakum National Park, Ghana

Community-based ecotourism (CBE) is seen as a viable model for achieving conservation and improved livelihoods for park-fringe communities. In view of that, many communities in Ghana, including Mesomagor, have embraced the concept. Yet, most studies have employed quantitative methods and failed to examine the challenges of community participation in ecotourism development. Therefore, this study employed qualitative methods to analyze the benefits and challenges of CBE in the Mesomagor community of the Kakum National Park. This involved key informant interviews of 15 stakeholders using a semistructured interview guide. The results of the study show that though the community had made some modest economic gains, especially in infrastructural development, the project was confronted with a number of challenges including apathy towards participation, limited employment and revenue-sharing opportunities, lack of local capacity to manage the project, and destruction of farms by stray elephants from the park.

Effects of Socio-Demographic Characteristics and Perceived Benefits of Tourism on Community Participation in Tourism in the Mesomagor Area of the Kakum National Park, Ghana

Effects of Socio-Demographic Characteristics and Perceived Benefits of Tourism on Community Participation in Tourism in the Mesomagor Area of the Kakum National Park, Ghana

Bee Fauna in and Around Kakum National Park

Even though several ecological studies on various fauna studies have been carried out in the Kakum National Park, record on the bee fauna is lacking in spite of the fact that bees are one of the most economically important insects. Bees constitute 60%-70% of all insect pollinators. This research was set out to assess the bee fauna within three landscapes (primary forest, secondary forest and agricultural land- in and around the Kakum National Park of Ghana. Pan traps (blue, white and yellow) were designed to collect bees at the canopies of forest trees as well as lower vegetation levels for thirteen months. Over 57 bee species belonging to three families (Apidae, Halictidae and Megachilidae) were identified from a total of 1, 288 bee specimens collected from the three landscapes. These were categorized into 31 genera. Significant differences in total abundance were recorded among the stingless bee and other bee species within the landscapes. In terms of sociality, variations occurred in the different landscapes with bees exhibiting four levels of sociality (parasitic, eusocial, quasisocial and solitary). Both long and short tongued bees were present in all the three landscapes.