About

Ghana’s highest town, and the refuge beneath it

Amedzofe sits atop the Avatime range in the Volta Region, the highest permanent settlement in Ghana. It was founded by Guan settlers in the 16th century, and its cool, near-temperate climate has long made it a place apart from the rest of the country — known today for Mount Gemi’s summit views and the Amedzofe waterfall.

Just below the town lies the Onepone Endangered Species Refuge, established in 2018 by Herp Conservation Ghana in partnership with Rainforest Trust and the communities of Amedzofe and the surrounding villages. The refuge was created to protect the Togo slippery frog — a species so rare it was believed extinct for nearly forty years before its rediscovery here. Since then, the refuge has been found to shelter at least eleven other IUCN-listed threatened species, along with a wider highland forest home to over 220 plant species, 150-plus bird species, two dozen mammals, and dozens of butterfly species, many found nowhere else on Earth.

From canopy walk to zipline

Herp Conservation Ghana — West Africa’s first organization dedicated to amphibian and reptile conservation — built its first ecotourism structure here in 2022: a canopy walkway over the refuge, modelled on the one at Kakum National Park. It has since drawn tens of thousands of visitors into the forest it was built to protect.

The Biakpa–Amedzofe Zipline is the newest chapter: a line strung across the hills between the two villages, launched from Amedzofe itself. It’s given the area a claim few places in the region can make — and one we take seriously enough to have it independently verified before we shout too loudly about it.

Adventure that funds conservation

Every ticket sold here does double duty. Proceeds are shared between the landowning families, local government, traditional authorities, and community development — with a portion set aside specifically to maintain the refuge itself. What began as farmland and hunting ground for local communities is now protected forest, with reforestation led largely by women’s groups from the partner communities, who plant, tend, and directly profit from the trees they grow.

Guided by the people who live here

Every guide on this line comes from the ten communities that partner with the Onepone Refuge. Many are young people who once had to leave the area for work and now build careers here instead — trained not just to run the ride safely, but to tell you what you’re flying over. Local schoolchildren take part in an after-school conservation programme, and a youth-led peer education group carries the same message further into the surrounding villages.

Part of something bigger

The model built here — protecting a forest by turning it into a livelihood rather than a resource to clear — has drawn national attention. Herp Conservation Ghana works alongside Ghana’s Wildlife Division to run it, and is now replicating it at the Ankasa Conservation Area on the other side of the country.

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