Tit is a playful and chubby mammal which went viral from his Thai zoo enclosure has a sad story to tell about his fellow hippos.

Moo Deng is a two-month-old pygmy hippopotamus who flaps his ears for joy and loves splashing in the water. She lives the life of a superstar at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo, where huge crowds have gathered – but the chances of spotting her relatives in the wild are slim.

Perhaps not surprisingly, pygmy hippos feel most comfortable deep in the forest. Early European explorers in Liberia wrote in their newspapers that this hippo chooses to feed at night and hide in water or dense vegetation during the day.

This species is so secretive that 19th century explorers observed it:

if someone crosses one of its paths or tunnels (used to navigate through thick vegetation), they will abandon that route for a period of time.

Sensitive souls

Widespread deforestation and constant disturbance have made it difficult for pygmy hippos to survive, requiring a combination of dense forests and swamps that already limited them to a small area. West African forests have lost more than 80% of their area of ​​originwhich confines wild pygmy hippos to small locations in the Gola National Forest (Sierra Leone) and Sapo National Park (Liberia).

With their forests rapidly disappearing, there simply isn’t enough space for pygmy hippos to find food, thrive and reproduce. An investigation in and around the Gola Rainforest revealed that many were hiding on former croplands outside the protected area.

Cocoa production is probably the biggest cause from the loss of forests, then gold mining and unsustainable logging. These activities now encroach on forest reserves and other supposedly protected areas.

Previous forest conservation efforts have failed. Conservatives plead for a system to financially reward farmers and empower local forest communities to safeguard forests and sustainably manage what remains, as opposed to a top-down model of state management and enforcement.

A world treasure

The loss of forests in West Africa is particularly heartbreaking because research shows that one remaining patch could be the most productive on Earth, surpassing even the Amazon rainforest.

Highly productive forests harness more of the sun’s energy and turn it into a bounty of tasty herbs and juicy fruits – more food to feed animals like pygmy hippos and support rich biodiversity.

Before the extensive field work begun in 2016, researchers had underrated the value of West African forests, in particular their capacity to store carbon and thus compensate for global warming. This oversight is partly explained by the fact that these forests are hidden by clouds, making satellite observation difficult, and by their relative neglect by Western researchers compared to other ecosystems elsewhere.

It’s not just Moo Deng’s extended family that is in danger. The forests of West Africa are House more than 900 species of birds and nearly 400 mammals, more than a quarter of all mammal species in Africa. Their future is strongly threatened by massive deforestation.

Underestimating the value of West Africa’s forests has pushed them off the list of priorities for global forest restoration. It is unfortunately not surprising that deforestation continues. In 2022 alone, Ghana lost 44,500 acres of forest (twice the size of Manchester), an increase of almost 70% compared to 2021.

Each tropical forest provides irreplaceable biodiversity. From the elusive mammals of West Africa to the vibrant birds of Southeast Asia, these ecosystems are equally important. Comprehensive plans are needed to restore them, including empowering local communities to manage their long-term health.

A global initiative to designate 30% of Earth’s land and oceans as protected by 2030 (known as 30×30) should not conserve a large area in one or two places, ignoring Earth’s other biodiversity hotspots. The lesson from the disappearance of Moo Deng’s house should be to value ecosystems in the same way – and to plan for their preservation with the same care.

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Huanyuan Zhang-Zhenglecturer at Worcester College and postdoctoral researcher in the School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford And Sulemana Bawadoctoral student in conservation biology, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The conversation under Creative Commons license. Read the original article.