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Pangolino

Partner Snapshot

Partner

Pangolino

Location

Cross River State, Nigeria, Africa

Category

  • Capacity Building and Training
  • Community Support & Development
  • Wildlife Conservation

Urgent Appeals

Build Nigeria’s Next Generation of Conservation Scientists

Date Founded

2022

Website

pangolino.org

Partner Qualifications

About Pangolino

Pangolino is a Nigerian conservation nonprofit working to protect the White-bellied pangolin and Black-bellied pangolin through community-based conservation in Southeast Nigeria, where hunting remains the primary direct threat to both species. Their approach combines field research, conservation education, and collaborative community interventions that address the social and economic drivers behind wildlife exploitation.

Pangolino has reached people through school conservation clubs, film screenings, and over 10,000 educational materials distributed to date. Their research, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, produced one of the first detailed analyses of pangolin hunting and trade dynamics in Nigeria. Pangolino is co-developing community bylaws to reduce pangolin hunting while establishing a resilience fund to support local healthcare projects.

Their Challenges

Nigeria's forests are disappearing. Agricultural expansion, logging, infrastructure development, and a rise in small-scale mining—including inside Protected Areas—have fragmented habitat and driven steep declines in wildlife populations across the country. In Cross River State, two of the world's most trafficked animals, the White-bellied pangolin and Black-bellied pangolin, face relentless pressure from hunting and illegal trade driven by demand for food, income, and international trafficking networks. Conservation capacity compounds the problem. With limited funding, weak enforcement infrastructure, and insufficient investment in locally-led research, Nigeria's globally significant biodiversity remains chronically underprotected—and the communities most connected to that wildlife often face poverty and food insecurity that make purely regulatory approaches ineffective.

Their Approach

Pangolino's model is built on the premise that effective conservation has to be designed with—not for—the communities closest to wildlife. Field surveys, interviews, and behavioral assessments build the baseline data needed for evidence-based decisions, which feeds directly into targeted outreach: school conservation clubs, community meetings, film screenings, and awareness campaigns designed to shift long-term behaviors.

Their flagship initiative takes that engagement further—working with local stakeholders to co-develop community bylaws limiting pangolin hunting, paired with a locally identified healthcare resilience fund that links biodiversity protection to tangible community benefit. Strengthening the pipeline of early-career Nigerian conservation scientists is also central to their work.

Why They Need Your Help

Donations support two priorities: expanding community-based programmes already underway—awareness campaigns, school clubs, participatory monitoring, and the community bylaw initiative—and establishing a Conservation Research and Training Centre near Calabar on a plot of land Pangolino has already secured. The centre will provide early-career Nigerian researchers with hands-on training in field ecology, conservation science, and data analysis: infrastructure and mentorship that currently has no equivalent in the region. Funds go toward computers, essential facilities, and stipends for students and practitioners who would otherwise have no pathway into conservation science.