MOLE RESEARCH CENTRE

One of the facilities available at Mole National Park is a Research Centre. This Research Centre, which is presently under construction, is located at Lovi, and sited very close to the Lovi River, in rich biodiversity of the Park. Lovi Research Centre is in the centre of the southern area of the Park, 27 km north from the Wildlife Division Headquarters at the Park.
Lovi Research Centre is a project co-funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation; Ricerca e Cooperazione; and the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission of Ghana.

The Research Centre is meant for enhancing, strengthening, coordinating and disseminating results of research activities and outputs within the Park and its fringe areas, for an improved management of natural resources, within and outside the Park, and for the benefit of similar areas in Ghana and in Africa.
The Research Centre offers space for 25 researchers at a time: it accommodates laboratories, a library, a conference room and one guest quarters, to be used by national and international researchers and students engaged in research work. The equipment available to the researchers comprises camera traps, GPS collars, Microscopes, GPS, radio stations, call stations, scales, cameras, etc.

This Research Centre is managed by the Wildlife Division and the University for Development Studies – Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources. To pursue its research objectives, the Research Centre is led by a Scientific Committee, consisting of - among others - the Wildlife Division, the University for Development Studies (UDS), and Ricerca e Cooperazione.
The building is off grid, and has been built with respect to the environmental context in which it lies, employing clean energies for its power needs. It has been coherently constructed, thus respecting the landscape as much as possible, with the use of local materials.
There is also the need for a “helipark” (place for a helicopter).

Research Activities:
As a sustainable management and conservation Institution, the Wildlife Division supports research focusing on biodiversity, protected area management, conservation, relationship and interactions between protected areas and their fringe communities, to overcome and reconcile conflicts between man and wildlife. This provides the bases for conservation actions which are supported by different actors. Presently, the on-going research projects at Mole National Park, supported by the project Pride of Ghana 9602/RC/GHA, co-funded by the Italian Government and implemented by Ricerca e Cooperazione, the Wildlife Division and the University dellaTuscia:“Research into the population of lions at Mole National Park” is ongoing.

Specifically, a census is carried out by a team of researchers from the University dellaTuscia, in collaboration with the Wildlife Division, employing methodologies such as the use of camera traps, call stations, random search (with the use of one or more cross-country vehicles to cover paths at the time of the day considered most suitable); monitoring of fresh traces; use of potential indicators of presence of lions such as vultures; reports from rangers and other park staff; surveillances of drinking areas commonly used by the pride (especially during the dry season and at night); use of electromagnetic callbacks reproducing the roar of the male lion or other competitor lions’ species.
Note: The Wildlife Division promotes research, and not support.