Posted on November, 11 2015

In some welcome news from the forests of southern Cameroon, a WWF survey has found that the numbers of elephants and great apes in and around the Campo Ma’an National Park have remained relatively stable over recent years – despite prevailing threats from poaching, logging and agro-industrial activities, and a score of big infrastructure projects that are under development.

The report estimates that there are 550 forest elephants and 2,200 great apes in the area, indicating that populations of these flagship species stayed roughly the same between 2008 and 2014.

The survey reveals a particularly high concentration of elephants and great apes – western lowland gorillas and chimpanzees – on Dipikar Island, which has been described as a “biodiversity haven” inside the park. Duikers, mandrills, buffalos, red river hogs and nine species of monkeys were also recorded.

“The findings will guide decision making related to surveillance, subsistence hunting and ecotourism in the area,” said Dr Kouamé Paul N’Goran, WWF’s Regional Biomonitoring Coordinator.

“But for this to succeed, all actors will have to respect and implement the survey’s recommendations, which include continued anti-poaching support, protecting elephant migration corridors, and establishing a collaboration platform between conservation services, extractive industries, infrastructure projects and local communities in order to reduce pressure on wildlife,” added N'Goran.

Situated on the border with Equatorial Guinea, Campo Ma’an is under increasing pressure from big infrastructure projects, agro-industry and logging companies.

The Kribi deep sea port, one of the largest in Central Africa, the Memve’le hydroelectricity dam, and a 510 railway line are just three example of projects that will impact on both park biodiversity and local livelihoods, and which must be harmonized with conservation and tourism development objectives.

WWF conducted the survey in collaboration with the park conservation service. For five months, 10 teams used professional scientific sampling methodology to collect data on large and medium-sized mammals in a 538 km² area.

The survey was carried out with funding from the Norwegian Development Cooperation Agency (NORAD), the Foundation for Environment and Development in Cameroon (FEDEC), a European-Union funded Project through the Network of Protected Areas in Central Africa (RAPAC), and WIJMA, an FSC-certified logging company operating in the area.

“The stability of wildlife populations in Campo Ma’an National Park and its periphery, including our logging concessions, is of great comfort to us,” said Camille Kamdem Simo, head of sustainable management and certification at WIJMA. “As an FSC-certified company we take biodiversity protection seriously, so we will use the results of this inventory to improve wildlife management in our concessions.

WWF has been working in Campo Ma’an since 2003, providing support to the park authorities in biomonitoring, anti-poaching, and indigenous community participation in the management of the park. WWF is also running a gorilla habituation project.

The survey was part of a wider WWF effort to assess and update wildlife data in some protected areas and logging concessions in Cameroon.  Similar inventories have been carried out in Lobeke, Boumba-Bek and Nki National Parks and in the Ngoyla-Mintom Forest Block in the East and South of the country. Results are expected in the coming months.