Collaboration Management Workshops

Organising collaboration management workshops for the protection of critically endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee and pangolins was very important. This was to reinforce and improve collaboration between the communities who live alongside the chimpanzees and pangolins and government who is the main agent of protection. The meetings were chaired by the conservator of the park, Mr. Ashu Walters, in collaboration with members of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) including all the nine forest guards in the park. In attendant were community leader’s focal point members, muslims, members of MINFOF and hunters across the four compartments of the park. These compartments are the Esu Compartment, the Kimbi Compartment, the Nkang Compartment and the Dumbo Compartment. For the fact that during the meeting, there was unrest in the park and many of the officials were out, the meetings were held at the Limbe Wildlife Center. The very rich meeting was well planned and maintained a well desired outcome. Below are the recommendations from the meeting.

The main reasons advance by locals for the encroachment into the park were fertile soils in the park which is good for both commercial and subsistence agriculture, hunting opportunities and grazing opportunities and that some of them have been living in the park for the past 50 years and even see the creation of the park as a threat to their survival.

In order to reduce or stop the encroachment of the humans into the park the following were recommended:

1. The farming land and the grazing land should be divided.
2. Soil fertility should be improved through the provision of both chemical and organic fertiliser.
3. The local authorities such as the chief for posts, counselors, Fons, should sensitize/ educate their local communities in language that their subjects can best understood.
4. In addition, punishment and huge tax payment should be levied; posters should be produced and passed round the town/ village, churches and in the mosques; more sustainable livelihood programmes should in introduced in order to reduce massive encroachment such as cocoa, cassava, palms, etc.

More so, some of the best management of these species include:

1. Provide scholarships to deserving students who perform well around the park area to remove their interest in hunting.
2. Encourage pig and poultry farming in and around the park, which is give piglets to local community members, opening of poetry farms before removing.
3. Organise training in beekeeping and provide seed money for them to kick off the business.
4. Negotiate for relocating the locals who are exploiting biodiversity hotspot of the park.
5. Give temporal employment such as tourist guides, porters to local community members.
6. Encourage agro-forestry in peripheral communities through the donation of cassavas, cocoa, palm nuts which will reduce the rate of unemployment and improve the living standards of the local community members while protecting our threatened wildlife.
7. Community leaders / chiefs should actively implement the laws and punishment measures indicated which would help in the protection and conservation of these endangered wildlife.