Manifesto of the Cross River Gorilla Alliance

A shared vision for community-led action for gorillas, forests, and people

Introduction

In the forests of Cross River basin, one of the world’s rarest great apes — the Cross River gorilla — still survives. Fewer than a few hundred individuals remain, living across a mosaic of community lands, protected areas, and forest corridors that stretch between the  Nigeria and Cameroon border region.

Their survival is inseparable from the wellbeing of the forests and the communities who call this landscape home.

We, nine committed organizations, united by purpose and urgency, establish the Cross River Gorilla Alliance, a community-led group of organisations in Cameroon and Nigeria, to secure a thriving future for this extraordinary species, the biodiversity it shelters, and the people whose lives are interwoven with these forests.

This manifesto is our shared declaration of intent.

Our Vision

The Cross River Gorilla Alliance envisions a united, community-driven network that safeguards gorillas and their habitats through collaboration, science, and inclusive development. It brings together civil society organizations, local communities, researchers, and public institutions to secure the long-term survival of gorilla populations across the Cross River region.

We envision a future where:

• The Cross River gorilla population is stable and growing.
• Forest landscapes are ecologically connected, protected, and restored.
• We respect local constituencies.
• Communities are empowered stewards of their forests and beneficiaries of sustainable, dignified livelihoods.
• National NGOs are strong, collaborative institutions with the capacity and financial resilience to lead long-term conservation.
• Conservation is not dependent on scarcity-driven fundraising, but sustained by innovative and diversified financing.
• The Cross River landscape becomes a global model for integrated, inclusive, community-led conservation.
• The Cross River gorilla becomes a symbol of national pride in Nigeria and Cameroon.

Our ambition is bold:

To drive system-level change and build a conservation alliance that sets a global standard for integrated, inclusive, local economic development and and science-driven community-led landscape conservation — rooted in local knowledge and leadership, equity, and community trust.

Our Guiding Principles

1. Integration Over Isolation

We reject fragmented interventions.

We commit to an integrated, inclusive landscape approach that aligns biodiversity conservation, climate action, and community development.

2. Communities at the Center

Conservation succeeds when communities thrive.

We support Community Conserved Areas, participatory governance, equitable benefit-sharing, decent income opportunities, and youth and women’s leadership.

3. Innovation with Integrity

We embrace conservation technologies — remote sensing, SMART patrol systems, acoustic monitoring, data platforms — to improve effectiveness and transparency.

We leverage:

• Carbon credits
• Biodiversity credits
• Water credits
• Results-based financing
• Blended finance mechanisms

But we do so with environmental integrity, social safeguards, and long-term sustainability.

4. Regenerative Economies

We promote regenerative agriculture, sustainable value chains, agroforestry, and forest-friendly enterprises that restore soil, protect biodiversity, and increase incomes.

We shift from extractive to regenerative systems.

5. Collaboration Over Competition

We move beyond competition for short-term grants.

Through shared strategy, pooled learning, and coordinated fundraising:

• We reduce duplication.
• We increase collective leverage.
• We spend less time competing and more time conserving.

6. Capacity as a Foundation

We invest in:

• Organisational development of NGOs.
• Education and training.
• Financial management systems.
• Monitoring, evaluation, and learning.
• Gender equality and leadership development.
• Community governance capacity.

Strong institutions enable lasting conservation.

Our Strategic Pillars

Pillar 1: Strengthen Gorilla Conservation and Habitat Protection

• Strengthen protection of key gorilla habitats and ecological corridors.
• Support anti-poaching surveillance and community-based conservation.
• Promote restoration of degraded forest areas critical to gorilla survival.
• Integrate land-use planning across boundaries.

Pillar 2: Climate and Biodiversity Finance

• Develop high-integrity carbon projects.
• Pilot biodiversity credit mechanisms.
• Channel revenues transparently to communities and conservation.
• Establish long-term financing structures, including trust funds and water funds.

Pillar 3: Support Community Development

• Strengthen the role of local communities in gorilla habitat protection.
• Promote alternative livelihoods that reduce pressure on forests (e.g. agroforestry, NTFPs, ecotourism).
• Integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into conservation strategies.
• Ensure equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms in gorilla landscapes.

Pillar 4: Technology and Data for Impact

• Deploy effective conservation technologies.
• Build shared data systems.
• Improve monitoring of gorilla populations and habitat health.
• Use evidence to guide adaptive management.

Pillar 5: Enhance Coordination Among CSOs

• Establish a functional CSO Gorilla Network platform for collaboration and information sharing.
• Develop joint advocacy positions and unified conservation messaging.
• Promote data sharing and joint reporting frameworks among member organizations.
• Facilitate regular meetings, technical exchanges, and learning events.

Pillar 6: Improve Policy and Legal Advocacy

• Advocate for stronger legal protection of critical gorilla habitats.
• Monitor and support enforcement of wildlife and forest laws.
• Engage with government institutions in protected area creation and management.
• Support integration of gorilla conservation priorities into national biodiversity strategies.

Our Commitments

We commit to:

• Measurable impact, not symbolic action or outputs alone.
• Long-term partnerships, not short project cycles.
• Shared success, with individual visibility.
• Transparency in finance and governance.
• Respect for human rights and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
• Gender equity and intergenerational inclusion.

Our Intended Outcomes

Through this Alliance, we will achieve:

• Increased collaboration among NGOs.
• Stronger institutional capacity.
• Empowered communities with secure rights and sustainable incomes.
• Contextualised livelihood additionalities.
• Diversified, predictable, and resilient funding streams.
• Reduced administrative burden and fundraising pressure.
• More time and resources dedicated to field conservation.
• A measurable increase in Cross River gorilla numbers.
• Protected and restored habitats.
• Climate and Ecosystem Resilience.
• A safer, healthier, and more productive landscape for communities.
• Stronger Policy and Institutional Frameworks.

Our Call to Partners

The survival of endangered cross river gorilla populations depends on bold, coordinated, and sustained action. Across the Cross River Region, critical habitats are under increasing pressure from deforestation, poaching, infrastructure expansion, and climate change. The CSO Gorilla Alliance invites civil society organizations, government institutions, research bodies, donors, private sector actors, and community-based organisations to join a collaborative platform dedicated to securing viable cross-river gorilla populations and resilient forest landscapes.

Invest in a model that unites biodiversity, climate resilience, and human development.

Support a locally driven alliance that matches global ambition with grounded action.

Our Promise to the Future

We stand at a decisive threshold.

The extinction of the Cross River gorilla would represent a profound failure — ecological, moral, and generational. Its recovery, however, would signal something far greater: that collaborative, inclusive conservation can succeed in the 21st century.

We choose community-led.
We choose resilience.
We choose partnership.
We choose hope backed by action.

Together, as the Cross River Gorilla Alliance,

we commit to securing a living forest landscape where gorillas thrive, biodiversity flourishes, and communities prosper — today and for generations to come.

In Unity and Shared Purpose

Together, we endorse this Manifesto as a living framework for collaboration. Through our signatures, we commit to mutual trust, transparency, and sustained joint action for the conservation of the Cross River gorilla and the wellbeing of the communities who share its forests.