November/December 1999

Women and Conservation in Cameroon

For the women of South West Province in the West African nation of Cameroon, fuel wood is a daily necessity -- for cooking, heating and drying food. However, the forest areas around Mount Cameroon have been extensively cleared for fuel wood and farming, so the pressure on this forest is high and the supply of wood is decreasing rapidly. For Catalyst Grant recipient Gwendoline Burnley, the logical solution was to start a fuel wood nursery project that focuses on women from surrounding communities and involves them in local forest conservation. The project teaches these women how to plant and care for tree seedlings and create nurseries that can serve as an alternative source of fuel wood to prevent further deforestation of the once thick and lush coastal rainforest.

In addition to the conservation benefits of the project, Burnley envisioned it as an opportunity to improve the situation of women in Cameroon, who do not own land themselves but can achieve customary rights if their seedling plantations are successful. The project provides women with additional income through the distribution of seeds and seedlings as well as forest byproducts, such as soap from palm oil, palm kernels and fruits.

The rainforest surrounding Mount Cameroon is hilly and stony. An active volcano, Mount Cameroon is also the largest mountain in Western and Central Africa. The surrounding area contains over 4,000 plant species, including 50 species that can only be found on Mount Cameroon itself. It is also the last area in Africa where unbroken stretches of natural vegetation can be found from sea level to summit. The scarcity of fuel wood has become such a problem that people are logging illegally at night to evade surveillance teams -- including one in which Burnley herself participates.

A member of the Bakweri tribe, Burnley is a major local figure in the nearby city of Limbe and has been active in her support of conservation and women's issues. Choosing to work with women made sense for several reasons. In Cameroon, it is the women who farm and have agricultural knowledge and experience. "The government's past efforts that have not included women have been unsuccessful," she says. "Also, maybe because I'm a woman it is easy for me to relate with and speak with the local women in Cameroon." By listening to the women, Burnley learned that they are acutely aware of the problems of deforestation, as they suffer the consequences of soil erosion and damage to the watershed. The women have also noticed that local wildlife are being displaced by the logging, as young children no longer know about or see local species.

The Rainforest Alliance awarded a $3,000 Catalyst Grant to Burnley's project in 1997. According to Catalyst Grants Coordinator Ina Chaudhury, "We awarded the grant because Burnley's project is a local conservation initiative that helps tackle the problem of natural resource exploitation by transferring knowledge and useful skills to the women of this community." The Catalyst Grants Program provides grants of up to $3,000 to carefully selected community-based conservation projects. Additionally, the program has placed a special emphasis on women's issues since 1995, in recognition of the important role that women play in conservation, especially in rural areas of developing countries.

The grant has helped support Burnley's work with the Limbe Botanic Garden, including energy conservation seminars and workshops on building fuel wood nurseries. Women from the surrounding areas came to learn about starting fuel wood nurseries and becoming potential distributors of seedlings. The grant also helped to cover costs of the 15,000 tree seedlings that were distributed as well as the cost of maintaining the pilot nursery and paying the technical staff to lead the workshops.

The energy conservation seminars taught the participants to use less fuel wood when smoking their fish and to be more conscious of which local materials were being used to build fish drying ovens. The fuel wood nursery workshops are more long-term in nature, as they mark the beginning of a partnership that Burnley has formed with the local women. Participants submit applications, attend tree planting demonstrations, and collect seeds and seedlings to plant. Technicians then visit the women's nurseries to supervise the planting. After the initial distribution of 5,000 seedlings, the survival rate has been estimated at 70 percent or higher for the newly planted trees.

Burnley has come a long way in educating local communities on how to utilize their natural resources in a more sustainable manner. Because planting is not immediately profitable, it takes patience and a clear understanding of the environmental issues at hand to make this a successful project. Once the nurseries become more established, the local communities will benefit from added income and the pressures on their dwindling natural resources will decrease -- a win-win situation for all.

With reporting by Lisa Otsubo.

The mission of the Rainforest Alliance is to protect ecosystems and the people and wildlife that depend on them by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior. Companies, cooperatives and landowners that participate in our programs meet rigorous standards that conserve biodiversity and provide sustainable livelihoods.