Posted on November, 21 2001

Nkongsamba, Cameroon: Coastal people in Cameroon are placing high hopes in a WWF Forest Project that is helping them draw livelihood from their natural resources. The Coastal Forest Project will be setting up community forests that give local people direct access to, and management of, available resources. "These community forests will become buffer zones and reduce pressure on resources by outsiders", says WWF Coastal Forest Project Executant, Dr. Atanga Ekobo. "Mangroves, for example, are the reproduction grounds for fish but its trees are being cut down by foreigners as fuel wood to dry their catch, thereby causing a serious depletion in the fish stocks of the area". The WWF Coastal Forest Project (Cross-Sanaga-Bioko) falls within the Congolian Coastal Ecoregion covering three of Cameroon's 10 administrative provinces -Southwest, Littoral and South. "As far as Central Africa is concerned, this area is the richest zone in terms of variety and numbers of wildlife," Dr. Ekobo says. "Some species were thought to be limited to some areas but we have discovered that they are quite dispersed within the region. All maps on gorilla habitats have excluded this area, but we recently discovered sizeable gorilla populations therein". However, big mammal wildlife in the project area is also under heavy threat. Extreme levels of poverty are pushing many more sections of the community to turn to the forests for their very sustenance and more forestlands are being opened for timber exploitation and urban expansion. There is evidence that the wildlife resources in the area are being severely taxed. For the above reasons, the WWF Coastal Forest Project and the ministry of the Environment and Forestry (MINEF) recently organised a workshop on Data Collection and Monitoring of big Mammal Wildlife that will permit to establish control mechanisms and institutions for economic use and sustainable exploitation of wildlife. The two-week workshop enabled the building of the capacity of some 30 MINEF staff to master the terrain and be able to carry out estimates of the abundance and distribution of wildlife. Knowledge of such a potential will enable the elaboration of sound and coherent wildlife management policies. "The objectives of nature conservation can have only one denominator: moving from damage-repair protection of the environment to preventive protection of the environment," said Dr. Martin Tchamba, WWF-CPO Director of Conservation, at the opening of the workshop. Three protected areas of Mont Nlonako, Ebo and Makombe Forests are found within the project area. The project has already recruited essential staff and got MINEF authorities to sanction its operation. It will be taking over the management of famous Limbe Botanical Gardens as a Community Forest. Local manpower has been hired for the preliminary surveys. WWF-Sweden is funding all Community Forestry aspects of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko Coastal Forest Project. The WWF International/African Elephant Programme sponsored the organization of the workshop on Data Collection and Monitoring of Big Mammal Wildlife. "This project has generated a lot of hope from the local people and my own hope is that we meet up these expectations", Dr. Ekobo says. "We are condemned to succeed." For more information contact: Dr. Atanga Ekobo, WWF Coastal Forest Project Executant, tel: +237 990 36 23/ 773 53 63