Cameroon: Filling forests and communities with hope

GSTDTAP > 资源环境科学

	Cameroon: Filling forests and communities with hope
	admin
	2018-03-27
发布年	2018
语种	英语
国家	国际
领域	资源环境
正文(英文)	A blog post by Frederick Kumah, Director, WWF Regional Office for Africa My first glimpse of Lobéké, Cameroon was from a few hundred miles above in the sky. From the plane, all I could see was a vast landscape stretching far and wide, vibrant with thick green trees and silver rivers snaking through. My mind immediately conjured up images of deep forests thronging with life – majestic elephants, prancing monkeys and chirping birds. On the ground, the land looked just as beautiful but felt oddly silent. The wildlife I was hoping to see was there, they told me, but in much dwindled numbers as the forest’s magnificent species fell prey to increasingly organized and militarized wildlife crime syndicates. According to a WWF census, 1,400 elephants are estimated to have been killed by poachers between 2006 and 2015 in Lobéké. The revelation was a grim reminder of the challenges local communities and organizations face in protecting and preserving Cameroon’s invaluable natural resources for future generations. In a country blessed with seas, mountains and tropical rainforests but grappling with deep-rooted socio-economic challenges, the pressures of growing sustainably and building a future where people and nature thrive together are many. This is something the country’s indigenous communities like the Baka, Bagyéli, Bakola, and Bedzang know very well. Living in and around the forests for centuries, these communities have conserved their traditional way of life, customs and culture for generations. However, as the country and landscape around them change irrevocably, their efforts to preserve their identity and inter-generational knowledge need greater support. I firmly believe our work to conserve nature as WWF goes hand in hand with a responsibility to invest in people. People and nature are so intrinsically linked – we depend on biodiversity for the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe – that as indigenous communities have known for centuries, the health and well-being of people depends on the health and well-being of the environment around us. This is why we work with local communities (link to http://working with Baka), in the Jengi landscape in Cameroon and elsewhere, to protect the natural environment and resources they depend on for their lives and livelihoods. As illegal logging and poaching threaten to empty the forests they revere, we are doing our best to help preserve these vital ecosystems, for people and wildlife. We are supporting communities to acquire and sustainably manage community forests (link to http://community forest) and build Payment for Ecosystems Services (PES) initiatives while also pushing for logging companies, who are increasingly present, to respect environmental and socio-economic best practices and credible certification standards. In addition, we are determined to do our best to also promote the rights of indigenous communities through conservation. We are doing this through capacity building and support to community-based natural resources management and income generating activities – this is sustainable development the way we see it. Yes, challenges persist and change cannot take place overnight but in the eyes of the people I met, from local Baka leaders to Baka students attending school with WWF support (link to story http://here), I saw the one thing that keeps us going, me personally especially – hope. A proverb in Liberia says, ‘a little rain each day will fill the rivers to overflowing’, and so I hope our collective actions and efforts will see the forests and communities of Cameroon thrive in the years to come.
URL	查看原文
来源平台	World Wide Fund for Nature
文献类型	新闻
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/125728
专题	资源环境科学
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	admin. Cameroon: Filling forests and communities with hope. 2018.