GIS unit, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Forest change over time at Kilum-Ijim. Landsat ETM images Zoom In

Cameroon forest expansion success

31-08-2003

One of the most important areas of montane forest in West Africa is increasing in extent, following a 16-year collaboration between BirdLife International, the Government of Cameroon, and local communities.

A survey by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew shows the forest has been regenerating rapidly within boundaries agreed by the participants in the Kilum-Ijim Forest Conservation project, and that clearance of forest for crops and grazing has come to an end.

Kilum-Ijim covers 20,000 hectares on Mount Oku and the adjoining Ijim ridge in the west of Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria. Most of the area is above 2,000 metres, and Mount Oku is the second highest mountain in mainland West Africa, at 3,011 metres. The area includes a mixture of montane forest, montane grassland and sub-alpine habitats.

Roger Fotso/BirdLife The Bamenda highlands endemic, Bannerman's Turaco Tauraco bannermanni , is benefitting from forest regeneration at Kilum-Ijim Zoom In

Fifteen montane bird species endemic to the Cameroon Mountains Endemic Bird Area, of which Kilum-Ijim is a part, are found there, including the endangered Bannerman's Turaco, Tauraco bannermani, and the Banded Wattle-eye, Platysteira laticincta. At least six of the 62 mammal species recorded in the forests of Mount Oku are found nowhere else. Kilum-Ijim is also the last West African stronghold of Alpine bamboo, Arundinaria alpina.

The area around the forest is among the most densely populated in West Africa. Around 200,000 people live within a day's walk of the forest. In addition to pressures to provide crops and livestock for local needs, the collapse of world coffee prices led to further encroachment on the forest, as farmers tried new cash crops. In 1992, it was estimated that if rates of clearance had continued unchecked, the entire forest would have disappeared within five years.

But by this time conservation efforts were well under way. The Kilum Mountain Forest Project began in 1987, after surveys by BirdLife had established the outstanding importance of the forest within the Cameroon Mountains Endemic Bird Area. A sister project to protect the Ijim forest, which comes under a different administrative region and a different ethnic group, began in 1992. The projects were brought together in 1995. The first priority of both projects was to establish a formal boundary within which no further clearance would be permitted.

The Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG) at Kew monitored vegetation cover changes at Kilum-Ijim, using satellite imaging and aerial photographs to create a series of images of the forest from 1958 to 2001. The researchers found that more than 50% of the montane forest had been lost in the 30 years between 1958 and 1988. But regeneration started almost immediately after the BirdLife project was established. By 2001, an area of forest equivalent to nearly eight percent of the 1988 extent had recovered, mainly on the east side of Mount Oku. Between 1988 and 1995, the forest edge expanded by 800 metres, reaching the agreed boundary. Since then, it has remained stable. To the west, the forest is regenerating within the boundary, and no further encroachment has taken place.

BirdLife The crater lake at My Oku in the Bamenda highlands, Cameroon Zoom In

"People don't necessarily realise that the birds they've known all their lives don't exist anywhere else, but once they do know, it adds to their motivation to protect their forest." —Dr Jonathan Barnard, BirdLife's Programme and Projects Manager

From the 1930s onwards, the Cameroon Government had attempted to protect the forest and stabilise its border. The current project has succeeded where earlier efforts failed by involving local communities from the outset, instead of trying to impose a reserve on the area where they live, regardless of local livelihoods and cultural traditions.

The forest provides villagers with food such as mushrooms, honey and meat, with firewood, building materials such as bamboo poles, wood for carving and with medicinal plants. The role the forest plays as a water source is also well understood locally. Where the forest has been lost, streams that once supplied water in the dry season no longer flow. Animals that provided earlier generations with meat can no longer be found, and women must travel ever greater distances in search of firewood. The forest also has great cultural significance: many traditional ceremonies are held, making use of forest products, including the red feathers of Bannerman's Turaco.

From the outset, the project combined biodiversity conservation objectives with the sustainable use of the forest for the benefit of the communities. The two sets of interests often overlapped, since conservationists and the communities both wanted to see the extent and essential nature of the forest maintained. BirdLife and the Cameroon Government's Ministry of the Environment and Forestry, MINEF, worked to ensure that measures to protect the extent, composition and structure of the forest and its rare and endemic species were included in the rules governing management and exploitation of the forest.

In practice, the local communities often suggested rules that were stronger than those the project partners would have perhaps expected. "People don't necessarily realise that the birds they've known all their lives don't exist anywhere else, but once they do know, it adds to their motivation to protect their forest," says BirdLife's Programme and Projects Manager, Dr Jonathan Barnard.

Community participation in forest management took a big step forward in 1994, with the Cameroon Government's Forestry Law. This includes provisions for Community Forests, under which local people manage state forests through agreements with MINEF.

BirdLife and MINEF provide help with creating legally recognised, village-based forest management institutions, and with developing management plans and rules for forest use, together with technical advice, training and a limited amount of financial assistance. "Studies of community forests show that where the community has received lots of external technical input, they've had more success in implementing sustainable management plans," says BirdLife's Barnard. "Without it, it's been very difficult, or almost impossible for them, since there are always strong commercial pressures on communities to 'sell-out' for short-term financial gain, at the expense of long-term sustainable forest-based livelihoods."

BirdLife Beehives in Kilum-Ijim forest Zoom In

The partners provided a 'livelihoods programme', now concluded, which offered advice on making the best use of existing crop and grazing land, and also on non-agricultural uses of the forest which can generate cash for the local economy. As a result, bee-keeping has been taken up enthusiastically, and the number of hives in the forest is increasing. Co-operatives harvest and sell the honey. Other forest activities include paper-making and wood-carving.

The bark of the tree Prunus africana is used in local medicine, and as an ingredient in pharmaceuticals to treat prostate problems. Previously the trees were exploited unsustainably by cutting them down or ring-barking them, and the money was pocketed by businessmen from outside the area. "The communities are now in a position to develop revenues from harvesting Prunus africana in a sustainable way in the future," says Jonathan Barnard. Fortunately there is no threat from commercial logging in the Kilum-Ijim forests, in contrast to the immense social conflicts between logging companies and communities in the lowland forests of Cameroon, but there is potential for sustainable local harvesting of timber by the communities.

Ecotourism is another possible source of revenue, since as well as its huge wildlife interest, Kilum-Ijim is more accessible than some of the other forested areas in Cameroon. The project partners are working to ensure that any revenues from ecotourism go directly to the communities.

Within the limits agreed with the partners, the community decides what to do with the forest. After attempts to appoint formal wardens proved potentially divisive, with the real risk that the project would be resented as an interfering outside agency, the business of policing the forest was handed over to the communities themselves. When there are cases of illegal grazing or fire-starting, they are handled by village committees, who impose fines and penalties on their own members. More serious disputes, and those involving people from outside the local area, such as absentee livestock owners, are dealt with by the councils of the local paramount chiefs, the Fons.

BirdLife Villagers erecting forest reserve signs at the beginning of the project Zoom In

"Studies of community forests show that where the community has received lots of external technical input, they've had more success in implementing sustainable management plans."

Of the 18 proposed community forests covering Kilum-Ijim, nine had been formally allocated by August 2003, and it's hoped the rest will follow in the next six to 12 months. The project is currently in a phase of transferring technical expertise from BirdLife to a new Technical Operations Unit (TOU) within MINEF. The staff working on the project are currently a mix of BirdLife and MINEF employees. It's hoped that most will seamlessly transfer to MINEF when BirdLife withdraws.

The project has also set up and trained an ecological monitoring unit, which continuously assesses the condition of the forest, and reports to the communities, MINEF and conservation organisations like BirdLife. Its role is to ensure that conservation goals are being met, and its activities are complementary to the local communities, who keep watch over the health of their own forests, and the continuing effectiveness of their management plans.

The increased extent of the forest is a sign that conservation goals are being achieved. But challenges remain. Fire is still a continual threat, and uncontrolled livestock grazing is preventing tree regeneration and damaging the sensitive grasslands on the ridge tops.

BirdLife Banded Wattle-eye Platysteira laticincta Zoom In

Nevertheless, the Kilum-Ijim Forest Project has become a flagship for community forest projects in Africa and elsewhere. While it has enjoyed some advantages - the freedom from commercial logging pressure, for example - it has also provided object lessons in balancing the needs of different occupational groups, such as wood carvers, honey producers and Fulani herdsmen, and resolving conflicts of interest.

BirdLife is also involved in the Bamenda Highlands project, which is passing on the lessons of Kilum-Ijim to other communities in the montane forest areas in Cameroon.

Kilum-Ijim has also has demonstrated that, given the right kind of support, people will not inevitably pursue short-term financial gains from cash crops. Communities may value their traditional way of life and their natural surroundings sufficiently to accept limits on their activities, the expenditure of a good deal of unpaid time and effort, and long-term benefits over an immediate financial return.

Note: The Kilum-Ijim Forest Project is being carried out by BirdLife International in collaboration with the Cameroon Ministry of the Environment and Forestry and forest adjacent communities. The project is currently funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF/UNDP), and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) through the Civil Society Challenge Fund. In the past, it has also received funding from the Joint Funding Scheme (DFID), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) through the Cameroon Biodiversity Conservation and Management Programme, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries through the Programme International Nature Management (PIN), Comic Relief and WWF Netherlands (through the WWF Country Programme Office in Cameroon).