On Wednesday 27 April, an Alexander von Humboldt fellow, Gilbert Adum from Ghana, currently working at the Museum für Naturkunde, won this year’s Green Oscars Award, a Whitley Fund for Nature Award. HRH Princess Royal presented the prestigious environmental prize worth £35,000 at a ceremony at the Royal Geographical Society, London, in honour of Mr. Adum’s outstanding research and conservation work on the unusual and rare Giant Squeaker Frog (Arthroleptis krokosua). This work was among seven other projects selected from 130 applications worldwide.
In collaboration with the herpetological group of MfN researcher Mark-Oliver Rödel, Gilbert and his team rediscovered 14 Giant Squeaker Frogs in 2009, and in a paper published in Zootaxa they prevailed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its assessment as Endangered. Hitherto, only a single individual was known to science, whereas today with successive fieldwork and conservation efforts up to 32 individuals have been uncovered including the species breeding populations.
With the Green Oscars Award, Gilbert Adum will continue, in collaboration with MfN, to conduct cutting-edge research to understand the elusive species breeding ecology and conservation needs. Together they will develop viable and sustainable alternative livelihoods for local people who depend on the Giant Squeaker Frog’s habitat. This will help to secure key habitat not only for Giant Squeaker Frogs but also for western chimpanzees and several other co-occurring endangered species. The project will also build vital capacity to conserve this species by training the next generation of amphibian biologists in Ghana.
Gilbert Adum is Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow based with his project at the Museum für Naturkunde. He is also the co-founder and Executive Director of West Africa’s leading amphibian conservation non-profit SAVE THE FROGS! Ghana (www.savethefrogs.com/ghana).
Please follow the links below for more information on the award including Gilbert’s acceptance speech, and interviews with BBC World Service, London.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHAys-AAQ0o
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03shv15.
http://whitleyaward.org/winners/saving-ghanas-frogs/
http://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/discover-who-has-won-years-green-oscars