Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary is under the management of the Cross River State Forestry Commission and it homes rare chimpanzees, gorillas and drill monkeys.
On Afi Mountain wild drill still survive, with other endangered primates including the most endangered gorilla subspecies, the Cross River gorilla. The rugged massif (1400m) is a critical watershed for dozens of communities.
Afi Mountain is listed as an IBA (Important Bird Area) for Nigeria and hosts one of the largest migratory swallow roosts in Africa.
The forests on Afi are a barrier against the encroaching derived savannah from the west and north. In 1993, Pandrillus started community protection patrols using local hunters to discourage shooting and trapping, an education programme in the 17 villages surrounding the mountain, and brought the communities together as a common interest group for the first time.
The mountain was then part of the Afi River Forest Reserve (383 sq km), a production forest reserve for which logging concessions had been issued
Pandrillus community protection programme prevailed and made great strides in controlling hunting, in particular developing popular support for protection of “The Big Three” – gorilla, drill and chimpanzee.
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