Every morning, Virginie Ambo’o and her sister-in-law, Clautilde Mango’o, stroll alongside a slender, muddy path via Schouam village in japanese Cameroon, close to the Dja Faunal Reserve. With hoes on their shoulders and baskets of machetes, cocoa seedlings, and meals on their backs, they make this every day trek to their farms—a routine for a lot of ladies within the space. This displays how agriculture sustains each their group and the encompassing panorama.
Virginie Ambo’o, exterior her house in Dja.
“I develop cocoa and palm nuts on my farm,” Ambo’o shares. “The earnings from cocoa gross sales helps me ship my six youngsters to high school in cities like Bertoua and Yaoundé. I additionally make cleaning soap from the palm nuts for my household and promote any further for added earnings.”
Whereas cocoa and palm nuts present stability for Ambo’o’s household, the area’s 129,000 residents throughout 300 communities depend on numerous livelihoods. These embrace cultivating money crops like groundnuts and cocoyams and harvesting non-timber forest merchandise (NTFPs) comparable to moabi, bush mangoes, Djangsang, and Mbalaka.
The Dja Panorama in southeastern Cameroon encompasses the Dja Faunal Reserve, a vital rainforest ecosystem spanning 526,000 hectares—an space roughly twice the dimensions of metropolitan Paris. Sadly, this biodiversity hotspot faces extreme threats, together with poaching, logging, bushmeat looking, and infrastructure improvement.
Since 2018, with help from the European Union, UNESCO, and the Nancy Drapper Basis, the African Wildlife Basis (AWF) has partnered with native communities to safeguard Dja’s biodiversity. AWF’s holistic conservation strategy integrates anti-poaching efforts, sustainable livelihood improvement, and ecological surveys to tell park administration and land-use planning.
AWF’s initiatives notably empower ladies via coaching in sustainable farming and NTFP processing and advertising and marketing. By providing various earnings sources, these interventions assist scale back dependence on poaching.
NTFPs like moabi timber, valued for furnishings and flooring, additionally present seeds used for cooking oil. Djangsang seeds, identified for his or her nutty, chocolatey taste, are a staple in West and Central African delicacies and are lauded for his or her medicinal properties. Mbalaka and bush mangoes function important elements in native dishes and conventional cures, enriching family diets and fueling group markets.
“I collect cocoyam, moabi, Djangsang, and Mbalaka seeds within the forest,” Mango’o explains. “At house, I dry and pack them into 50- or 100-kilogram luggage to promote to retailers in Yaoundé.”
By means of partnerships with 22 communities dwelling adjoining to the Dja Faunal Reserve, AWF has launched sustainable farming practices, considerably bettering livelihoods.
“Since 2018, rising cassava, groundnuts, and pepper has helped me look after my 4 sons,” says Albertine Ampopo, a participant in AWF’s agroforestry coaching. “This 12 months, I collected 250 cocoa vegetation and plan to begin a cocoa farm alongside my different crops. My sons will inherit it after they’re older.”
Ampopo lately harvested 300 kilograms of groundnuts, which she plans to promote for between US $3.83 and US $8.62 per kilogram (2,314–5,210 Central African CFA francs). This might yield US $1,149 to US $2,586 (696,294–1,567,116 CFA francs)—a big earnings, contemplating Cameroon’s common annual family earnings is round US $1,690 (1,042,000 CFA francs).
The five-year EU-funded program, which concluded in 2023, achieved exceptional outcomes, together with an 84% discount in poverty and a 75% improve in earnings. These successes have additionally pushed a 60% lower in poaching throughout the Dja Panorama.
ALBERTINE AMPOPO PICKS COCOA SEEDLINGS DURING A RECENT DISTRIBUTION SUPPORTED BY AWF.
Moreover, these initiatives have empowered ladies, granting them larger monetary management and decision-making roles of their households and communities.
“My husband listens to me extra now,” Mango’o shares. “He understands I can contribute to family choices as a result of I usher in earnings too.” This empowerment fosters a way of delight and independence amongst ladies, who at the moment are acknowledged as very important to their households’ welfare and conservation efforts.
“The success of this agroforestry initiative is drawing curiosity from different areas,” says Ariane Fondjo, AWF’s group improvement officer for the Dja Panorama. “The mannequin of mixing conservation with group improvement presents a sustainable blueprint for related efforts throughout Africa.”
AWF’s built-in conservation strategy within the Dja Panorama showcases how sustainable agroforestry methods create financial alternatives for communities, notably ladies, whereas selling coexistence and making certain that each individuals and wildlife thrive in shared landscapes.