Campo Ma'an
The Campo Ma’an landscape takes its name from a national park in southern Cameroon. The park and surrounding area are a biodiversity site of global significance, home to gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, and over 80 other mammal species. However, poaching and the illegal wildlife trade, as well as logging, agriculture, and coastal development, threaten wildlife, habitat, and ecosystem services that sustain human communities.
In Campo Ma’an, local people take the center stage in participatory conservation planning and implementation. Our work includes:
- Developing alternative livelihoods that replace poaching and improve incomes
- Supporting local communities and Indigenous people in the sustainable management of natural resources
- Increasing the effectiveness of anti-poaching efforts by providing tracking technology and equipment to rangers and community scouts
- Monitoring wildlife to inform conservation planning and anti-poaching work
Building wildlife economies
We partner with the Bagyeli community in the production of non-timber forest products to promote sustainability and strengthen conservation incentives. We also have helped establish a community nursery, providing the first 1,000 lemon tree seedlings and over 10,000 cocoa and plantain seedlings to help get the agroforestry initiative off the ground. Furthermore, Bagyeli villages established 7.5 hectares of community rubber-tree plantations and about 92 hectares of corn, groundnut, egusi, cassava, and yam farms.
Strengthening wildlife protection
We supported Cameroon’s wildlife ministry in developing a five-year anti-poaching strategy for the national park and have ensured that park staff are equipped with the latest anti-poaching and ecological monitoring tools and knowledge. AWF-trained rangers have seized large caches of bushmeat, snares, and firearms. We have also enabled ranger units to increase their patrols from just over 5,000 to more than 10,000 per year.
Engaging local communities
Our outreach to local communities living around Campo Ma’an National Park involves them in efforts to fight illegal wildlife trade and curb overexploitation of natural resources. Our community development officer in Cameroon Toumbou Nouazi engages local people, who she calls “guardians of the forest,” to achieve critical conservation goals.
