Small Mammal Conservation Organization

Boosting Local Economies

Co-developed with community members, SMACON employs a Nigerian fire ranger force—Forest Guardians—that deploy remote firefighting equipment to stop wildfires from reaching critical bat habitats. In addition to protecting forests, the program also shields farms from wildfires, serving over 5,000 small-holder farms. In the 2023 fire season alone, Forest Guardians prevented 33 wildfire incidents on farms. The team has protected and restored the Lower Guinean Forest, saving biodiversity, safeguarding local livelihoods for 3-5 million small-holder farmers, absorbing millions of tons of carbon per year, and reducing the spread of zoonotic diseases.

Expanding Education

SMACON is developing an integrated school program to engage children through fun conservation activities. With their species monitoring program, SMACON provides opportunities for students and citizen scientists to engage with bats and nature. Many Nigerian bat scientists and conservationists got their start as volunteers in this program.

SMACON’s West Africa Mammal Fellowship also aims to strengthen the capacity of post-graduate students through training, mentorship, and networking, which allows budding scientists and conservationists to secure the future of biodiversity in their home countries.

Guiding Policy

To create sustainable interventions, SMACON advocates for collaborations between science, conservation, and policy. SMACON helped protect the largest in-country colony of the straw-colored fruit bats from a government-proposed forest clearing, which would have devastated the bats’ roosting trees. SMACON collaborates with colleagues at local and international institutions to highlight the unique taxonomy, distribution, and ecology of bats in Nigeria so that the species and their habitats are valued by the government and key stakeholders.

Honoring Culture

SMACON believes conservation solutions must start locally, which is impossible when intervention programs ignore culture or local needs, failing to recognize people’s agency to act. Local agency drives behavior change and accelerates self-sustaining cultural shifts by eliminating the expediency of awareness programs without tools and enforcement without respect for culture.

Promoting Health

SMACON’s partnership with local communities also reduces bat hunting and consumption, and thus zoonotic disease risk. This intervention, together with forest protection for biodiversity and climate, addresses Earth’s three biggest interconnected issues, building on a shared belief that healthy environments are essential for healthy communities.

Reducing Conflict

Escalated wildfire events often result in conflicts between neighboring communities over who is responsible for the spread of fire. A major challenge to reducing forest fires is getting every member of the community to strictly adhere to policies placed on signposts that warn against brush burning at specific times. To address this, SMACON works with community leaders to design, promote, and enforce wildfire laws that are most appropriate and practical for each community. If any fines result from wildfires, then the money the community collects is usually used for development purposes, such as fixing bridges.

Scientific Research

The Bats of Nigeria Project is SMACON’s flagship research project, which seeks to document the country’s many bat species, their distribution, and their ecology. Through this project, they are also involved in developing the local capacity amongst Nigerian students. They teach the students effective science that generates reliable data in publishable articles, and contributes to understanding fundamental bat biology, broader ecology, and evidence-based conservation.