Pangolin Conservation in The Gambia: West Africa's Smallest Nation

The Gambia occupies a peculiar place on the map of Africa. A narrow strip of territory barely 50 kilometres wide at its broadest point, it extends roughly 320 kilometres inland along both banks of the Gambia River, entirely surrounded by Senegal except for a short Atlantic coastline. At approximately 11,300 square kilometres, it is the smallest country on the African mainland, yet it punches above its weight in biodiversity, hosting significant populations of hippos, crocodiles, and more than 600 bird species in its river system, floodplains, gallery forests, and coastal wetlands. This richness made The Gambia one of sub-Saharan Africa's early ecotourism destinations, earning the country its enduring tourism slogan: "The Smiling Coast of Africa."

In the shadows of this well-documented biodiversity, pangolins persist, largely unmonitored and insufficiently protected. The white-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis) inhabits the gallery forests and riverine woodland that line the Gambia River and its tributaries, foraging at night in the mid-storey canopy for arboreal ant and termite colonies. In the more open woodland and dry savanna habitats that characterise the country's eastern regions, the Temminck's ground pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) may occur at the periphery of its West African range. Both species face the same pressures that have driven pangolins to the edge of extinction across their African range: bushmeat hunting, traditional medicine demand, and the organised commercial trafficking trade that now reaches into the smallest and most remote countries of the continent.

A Country on the Fringe of Pangolin Range

The Gambia's conservation significance for pangolins reflects its ecological position rather than extraordinary abundance. The country sits within the geographic range of the white-bellied pangolin's West African distribution, which extends from Senegal and Guinea-Bissau eastward through the Guinea coast countries and the Congo Basin. The Gambia River corridor, with its intact gallery forests in the eastern parts of the country and seasonally flooded woodland along the riverbanks, provides the type of habitat that white-bellied pangolins favour: closed-canopy forest with a rich diversity of arboreal ant and termite species, accessible climbing structures, and sufficient tree-hollow denning sites.

The available habitat is constrained. More than two-thirds of The Gambia's original forest cover has been cleared for agriculture, with rice cultivation along the river floodplains and groundnut farming on the upland plateaus accounting for most of the loss. The remaining forest is concentrated in a handful of protected areas and in riverine strips where agricultural value is limited by flooding. This fragmentation limits pangolin home ranges and makes populations in isolated forest patches vulnerable to localised hunting pressure.

No comprehensive national survey of pangolin populations in The Gambia has been published. Most data on the country's wildlife comes from general biodiversity assessments conducted in the context of bird surveys, primate research, and protected area management plans. Pangolins, being nocturnal, solitary, and cryptic, are consistently under-represented in daytime wildlife surveys. Camera trap studies focused on larger mammals in Kiang West National Park have occasionally documented pangolin presence, but population estimates with any statistical rigour do not exist for any Gambian site.

Threats: Bushmeat, Traditional Use, and Trafficking

In The Gambia, as across West Africa, pangolins face a layered set of threats that interact and reinforce each other.

Bushmeat and Local Consumption

Wild meat has been an important protein source in Gambian rural communities for generations. The Gambia's human population has grown rapidly -- from approximately 1.4 million in 2003 to an estimated 2.7 million in 2024 -- and this population growth, concentrated in the western region around Banjul but extending into rural farming communities, has increased the demand for protein while simultaneously reducing alternative wildlife habitat. Pangolins, while not the primary bushmeat species in The Gambia (bush pigs, green monkeys, and birds are more commonly taken), are caught opportunistically by hunters using wire snares, machetes, and hunting dogs.

The sale of pangolin meat in rural markets is infrequent but documented. Because pangolins are relatively rare and the legal risk of selling protected species is non-trivial even where enforcement is weak, most pangolins killed for bushmeat in The Gambia are consumed locally rather than entering formal markets. This makes the trade difficult to quantify and essentially invisible to standard wildlife monitoring approaches.

Traditional and Medicinal Use

Pangolin scales and other body parts carry traditional significance across West African communities. In The Gambia, as in neighbouring Senegal, traditional healers (locally referred to as marabouts within the Islamic framework that shapes most Gambian cultural practice) may use pangolin scales in protective amulets, with beliefs that the scales carry protective properties against evil and danger. These uses do not require large numbers of pangolins -- a single animal's scales can supply multiple amulet items -- but they sustain a persistent low-level demand that maintains hunting incentives.

The significance of marabout networks in The Gambia extends beyond wildlife. Marabouts are central social figures in Gambian communities, providing spiritual guidance, healthcare, and social services that formal institutions often cannot. Conservation programmes that seek to reduce pangolin use in traditional contexts need to engage with these networks as partners rather than adversaries, a nuanced challenge that requires cultural competence and sustained community engagement.

Regional Trafficking Networks

The Gambia's most significant threat vector for pangolins may not be domestic consumption but its integration into regional West African trafficking flows. The country's relatively small territory, porous border with Senegal, international airport at Banjul (which handles significant European charter and scheduled flight volumes due to the tourism industry), and Atlantic port infrastructure create conditions that trafficking networks can exploit.

Pangolin scales and whole animals originating in Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and The Gambia itself move through informal cross-border channels along the extensive Gambia-Senegal border -- a boundary that was drawn to limit Gambian territory to the navigable reach of the Gambia River and is not practically enforceable across its entire length. Consolidation points in Dakar and Ziguinchor (Casamance) absorb Gambian material into larger shipments destined for West African export ports. Banjul International Airport has been identified in general wildlife trafficking analyses as a potential export point for air cargo consignments, though specific large Gambian seizures are not well documented in open sources.

TRAFFIC's analysis of West African trafficking networks consistently identifies the entire coastal zone from Mauritania to Liberia as a source and transit region for pangolin products, and The Gambia, despite its small size, is embedded in this network through its Senegalese border connectivity and international transport infrastructure.

Legal Framework and Enforcement

The Gambia has the legal architecture to protect pangolins, even if implementation capacity is limited. The country's primary wildlife legislation is the Wildlife Conservation Act, which designates pangolins as protected species and prohibits their hunting, possession, and trade without a permit from the relevant government authority. The Forestry Department of the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources has primary responsibility for wildlife law enforcement, supplemented by the Gambia National Park Service for in-park enforcement.

The Gambia became a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1977, and all African pangolin species were uplisted to CITES Appendix I in 2016, providing the strongest level of international trade protection. Under Appendix I, commercial international trade in pangolins or their products is prohibited for all CITES signatory states, including The Gambia.

In practice, enforcement capacity is severely constrained. The Gambia's Forestry Department is a small institution with limited vehicles, equipment, and personnel relative to the country's 11,000 square kilometres of territory and nearly 750 kilometres of border with Senegal. Park rangers in Kiang West and River Gambia National Parks conduct anti-poaching patrols but focus primarily on larger mammals (hippos and bushbucks) and illegal logging rather than nocturnal pangolin poaching specifically. Customs at Banjul Airport and the port of Banjul have received some capacity building on wildlife crime through CITES-supported programmes, but dedicated wildlife crime units do not exist at these entry points.

Protected Areas and Habitat Conservation

The Gambia's protected area network, though limited in total coverage, encompasses the most important remaining habitat for pangolins and other forest-dependent wildlife.

Kiang West National Park

Kiang West, established in 1987 and covering approximately 11,000 hectares along the south bank of the Gambia River, is the country's largest national park and arguably its most important wildlife refuge. The park encompasses a mosaic of mangrove, floodplain, woodland, and gallery forest habitats that support hippos, Western red colobus monkeys, green monkeys, spotted hyenas, and a suite of forest mammals. Camera trap studies within the park have documented pangolin sign, and the park's gallery forest strips along seasonal streams provide high-quality white-bellied pangolin habitat.

River Gambia National Park

The River Gambia National Park, centred on a group of islands known as Baboon Islands in the mid-river, is internationally known as the site of the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project -- the reintroduction programme for confiscated chimpanzees that began in the 1970s and has successfully rehabilitated multiple generations of animals. The project's island-based model, which limits human access to the islands, has inadvertently created wildlife refuges with minimal disturbance. Riverine forest on the islands and in adjacent mainland areas provides habitat for pangolins, though no specific surveys have been conducted.

Abuko Nature Reserve

Abuko, The Gambia's first nature reserve (established 1968), is remarkable for its location: a 105-hectare patch of forest within 15 kilometres of the capital Banjul, surrounded by agricultural land and peri-urban settlements. Despite its tiny size, Abuko supports a surprisingly rich mammal fauna including green monkeys, red colobus, porcupines, and occasional sightings of pangolins. Its value for pangolin conservation is more symbolic than demographic -- it cannot support viable populations in isolation -- but it serves an important role in environmental education and public awareness within The Gambia's urban population.

Conservation Capacity and Priorities

The Gambia's conservation capacity is disproportionately shaped by its small size and the donor dependency that characterises most of its public institutions. The country has benefited from international conservation investment in two main areas: bird-based ecotourism development, driven by The Gambia's reputation as Africa's premier winter birding destination for European visitors, and primate conservation linked to the internationally funded Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project.

Pangolin-specific conservation in The Gambia remains minimal. No organisation is conducting dedicated pangolin surveys, running camera trap monitoring networks for pangolins, or operating a confiscated pangolin rehabilitation facility. The Gambia Wildlife Society, the country's primary domestic wildlife NGO, has historically focused on bird conservation and education. International NGOs operating in the Sahel and West Africa -- including WCS, WWF, and IUCN -- have not prioritised The Gambia for pangolin-specific investment relative to larger range states such as Nigeria, Cameroon, and Senegal.

The most practical near-term priorities for improving pangolin conservation in The Gambia are modest but achievable: camera trap surveys in Kiang West and River Gambia National Parks to establish baseline presence-absence data; training for Forestry Department rangers in pangolin identification, sign recognition, and data collection; and integration of Gambian customs and airport staff into CITES-supported wildlife trafficking detection programmes that are already operating elsewhere in the region.

The Gambia's tourism infrastructure offers an underutilised conservation asset. Hundreds of thousands of European visitors arrive annually, primarily for sun-and-beach holidays on the Atlantic coast, but increasingly for birding and wildlife experiences. This tourism base creates a potential market for pangolin awareness programming and a constituency of international visitors who may support conservation funding if adequately informed.

Outlook

The Gambia's pangolins do not face an extinction crisis driven by their country alone. The populations that exist in Gambian forests are extensions of broader regional metapopulations that span Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea, and their long-term survival depends more on regional conservation dynamics than on anything The Gambia does unilaterally. But this regional embeddedness is precisely why The Gambia matters to conservationists: a country whose small size might argue for being overlooked is in fact a node in a trafficking network that, if ignored, siphons wildlife out of the West African system with impunity.

Investing in basic survey capacity, ranger training, and border point wildlife crime detection in The Gambia is not a large ask. The country's small size means that even modest investment can achieve significant coverage. And the Gambian state, despite its limited resources, has shown commitment to its international environmental obligations through its CITES membership and its maintenance of a functioning protected area system across four decades of political turbulence, including the 22-year dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh that ended in 2017 and the democratic transition that followed.

The Smiling Coast's pangolins are quiet, nocturnal, and unknown to most Gambians. Making them known -- to rangers, customs officials, community members, and the birdwatchers who already love this small country's wildlife -- is the first, most achievable step toward giving them a future.