New Podcast Episode: Rachel Ashegbofe Ikemeh, Nigeria
In the June podcast we talk with Rachel Ashegbofe Ikemeh, founder of the SW/Niger Delta Conservation Project. Rachel, a Nigerian conservationist and visionary, has built a team of almost 100 people working at the grassroots community level to save the wildlife of the Niger Delta. The delta, densely populated and home to oil and gas reserves, is one of the most degraded environments on the planet. It contains over half of the swamp forest in West and Central Africa and the world’s largest mangrove forest. Yet 95% of the forest has been lost in the past 15 years.
Rachel describes her career and how she stumbled into conservation work despite the many obstacles she faced from a society where young women are expected to get married and have children and definitely not become biologists!
She talks about some of the delta’s many special mammals including critically endangered primates like the the Niger Delta Red Colobus that Rachel’s team is bringing back from the brink of extinction with the help of local communities.
And Rachel talks about some of the very many dangers she has faced working in this difficult area. She has run the gauntlet of everything from death threats to drowning and also had a very close encounter with an angry Elephant.
Listen to the episode at the link below, or search for mammalwatching on Spotify, Apple and other podcast platforms.
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