Pangolin Conservation in Benin: Overlooked but Threatened
Benin is not a country that appears frequently in pangolin conservation literature. Wedged between Nigeria to the east — one of the most significant pangolin source countries on the continent — and Togo to the west, the small francophone nation rarely attracts the same conservation attention as its larger neighbours. Yet Benin is a pangolin range state, hosting two species across its forests and savannas, and its position at the margins of multiple major trafficking corridors makes it quietly significant in the regional picture. Understanding pangolin conservation in Benin requires situating the country within the broader West African trafficking ecosystem and recognising the constraints that limit an effective national response.
Pangolin Species in Benin
Two pangolin species are documented in Benin. The white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) occurs in the forest zones of southern Benin, where remnant lowland forest patches, gallery forests along river corridors, and secondary vegetation provide habitat for this arboreal species. It is the more commonly recorded species in bushmeat markets and confiscation reports. The giant ground pangolin (Smutsia gigantea) also occurs in Benin, primarily in the country's northern savanna zone in and around the W National Park transboundary complex. This larger, terrestrial species is less frequently documented than the white-bellied pangolin but is more vulnerable to targeted hunting given its size and the high scale mass of individual animals.
Systematic population surveys for either species in Benin are limited. The baseline scientific knowledge required to assess population trends, identify priority areas, or evaluate conservation intervention outcomes is largely absent. Camera trap programmes focused on larger mammals in W National Park occasionally generate pangolin records as byproducts, but no dedicated pangolin monitoring programme has operated at national scale. This data gap is itself a conservation challenge: without population baselines, the scale of decline is unknown, making it difficult to galvanise the political attention and funding required for a proportionate response.
Threats
Bushmeat Hunting and Domestic Trade
Across Benin's rural areas, pangolins are hunted for bushmeat, with both species encountered in rural markets and, less commonly, in urban markets in Cotonou and Porto-Novo. Hunting methods include wire snares, night-time torch hunting on foot, and opportunistic capture during agricultural work. The domestic bushmeat trade operates through informal networks with limited visibility to law enforcement, and pangolins enter this trade alongside other forest species including duiker, cane rat, and porcupine.
Cultural attitudes toward pangolin consumption in Benin vary by region and ethnic community. In some communities, pangolin meat carries prestige value, making it sought-after for special occasions. In others, it is simply valued as a protein source by rural households with limited access to alternative animal foods. Demand reduction efforts that do not engage with these cultural specifics are unlikely to change behaviour at the community level.
Cross-Border Trafficking: The Nigeria Factor
Benin's most significant pangolin conservation challenge is geographic: it shares a long, porous border with Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa and one of the most important pangolin source and transit countries on the continent. Nigeria's large forest zone harbours substantial pangolin populations — both white-bellied and giant ground pangolins — and has experienced intensive hunting pressure from organised trafficking networks that aggregate scales for export through Lagos port. Product moving within Nigeria's trafficking networks can cross into Benin through any of dozens of informal border points.
The implications for Benin are twofold. First, pangolins from Nigerian forests may move through Benin as transit goods, consolidated with locally sourced product before onward movement to Cotonou port or Lome in Togo. Second, the same networks that operate in Nigeria may extend procurement tentacles into Benin's own forests, incentivising hunting that might not otherwise occur at significant scale. The effective enforcement of Benin's wildlife laws requires coordination with Nigerian counterparts — something that cross-border law enforcement capacity and political relationships have not consistently supported.
Cotonou Port as an Emerging Transit Point
Cotonou port, while smaller than Lome or Lagos, has been identified as a potential transit point for wildlife products in regional enforcement assessments. Benin's position between Nigeria and Togo, and its well-established informal trade corridors, create conditions in which trafficking networks may route pangolin products through Cotonou as an alternative when enforcement at Lagos or Lome intensifies. Port-based wildlife enforcement capacity at Cotonou is limited, with customs officers receiving minimal training in wildlife product identification and no dedicated wildlife crime unit equivalent to those established in larger regional ports.
Habitat Degradation
Benin has experienced significant deforestation driven by smallholder agriculture, charcoal production, and timber extraction. The country's south — historically more forested — has seen the most dramatic habitat conversion, with forest cover declining sharply since independence. The remaining forest fragments are often degraded and fragmented, reducing their capacity to support viable pangolin populations. In the north, overgrazing by livestock in and around protected areas and the spread of rain-fed agriculture into savanna have reduced the quality of giant ground pangolin habitat in some areas.
Legal Framework
Benin is a signatory to CITES and has enacted domestic wildlife legislation that classifies pangolins as protected species. The country's forestry and wildlife code prohibits hunting, possession, and trade in pangolins, with penalties including fines and imprisonment. In practice, enforcement of these provisions has been weak, reflecting the broader under-resourcing of Benin's wildlife management institutions relative to the geographic scope of the challenge. The Direction des Forets et des Ressources Naturelles (DFRN) bears formal responsibility for wildlife law enforcement but has limited field capacity outside protected areas.
W National Park is the best-resourced protected area for wildlife enforcement in Benin. The park forms part of the transboundary W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) complex — shared with Burkina Faso and Niger — which is managed with support from the African Parks Network and international donors. Enforcement operations within the WAP complex have targeted bushmeat hunting and ivory poaching; pangolin-specific enforcement is less systematically developed but benefits from the general anti-poaching infrastructure of the complex.
Conservation Organisations and Programmes
African Parks Network in the WAP Complex
African Parks assumed management responsibility for Pendjari National Park in Benin in 2017, under an agreement with the Beninese government. Pendjari, in the northwest of the country, forms the Benin component of the WAP complex and is the country's most important protected area for large mammal conservation. The strengthened management under African Parks has improved anti-poaching patrol coverage, law enforcement operations, and community relations programmes within and around the park. Giant ground pangolins occur within the WAP complex, and the improved patrol presence has increased the likelihood that pangolin poaching within the park will be detected and prosecuted. Camera trap monitoring programmes have generated pangolin records from Pendjari, providing the most systematic population data available for the species in Benin.
EAGLE Network Operations
The EAGLE Network operates in Benin through its local programme and has supported wildlife law enforcement operations resulting in the arrest and prosecution of wildlife traffickers, including cases involving pangolin products. The EAGLE model — embedding legal and investigative support capacity within national enforcement authorities while maintaining operational independence — has resulted in prosecutions that would not otherwise have reached the courts. The deterrent effect of publicised arrests and prison sentences is limited by the relatively small number of cases processed, but represents a meaningful signal in a context where wildlife crime has historically attracted minimal legal consequences.
Research and Monitoring Gaps
Benin lacks a dedicated pangolin research programme. The country's universities have limited wildlife research capacity, and the international NGOs operating in Benin do not, for the most part, focus specifically on pangolins. Market surveys — systematic monitoring of bushmeat markets to quantify pangolin occurrence and trade volumes — have not been conducted in Benin at the frequency or coverage that would allow robust trend analysis. Filling these research gaps is a prerequisite for evidence-based conservation planning, and would require either dedicated funding for a Beninese research institution or integration of pangolin monitoring within existing conservation programmes in the WAP complex and southern forest zones.
Priorities and Outlook
Effective pangolin conservation in Benin requires engaging with the country's specific constraints: a small wildlife management budget, a long and porous border with Nigeria, limited port-based enforcement capacity, and an absence of the systematic research data that informs effective priority-setting. The most tractable near-term priorities are: strengthening EAGLE-supported law enforcement operations against mid-level traffickers; integrating pangolin-specific monitoring into African Parks' camera trap and patrol programmes in Pendjari; conducting baseline bushmeat market surveys in Cotonou and major northern market towns; and deepening border-coordination mechanisms with Nigerian counterparts to reduce cross-border trafficking.
Benin will not lead the global pangolin conservation agenda. But it is a range state, and it is a transit country, and the decisions made about enforcement, land use, and community conservation in the coming decade will determine whether the country's pangolin populations continue to decline quietly or stabilise as part of a functioning West African wildlife community. Attention — from conservation funders, from regional coordination bodies, and from Benin's own government — is the first requirement.