WHAT CONSERVATION EDUCATION REPRESENTS TO CAMEROON

13 Universities 20+ NGOs and 3 Ministries power conservation Education in Cameroon

Pupils studying different kinds of animal species at the Limbe Wild Life Centre credit Limbe Wild Life Centre

 By Israel Bionyi

From all indications Education in Cameroon is the most valuable tool which promotes growth and development. The most recent UNDP Human Development Indicator (HDI) for 2013 together with the Worlds Bank’s country report 2013 indicates Cameroon has reached 111% in her primary school education. This explains why more than 78% of the 23 Million people are considered educated.

Having education is one thing and having conservation knowledge is another. CIFOR (Center for International Forestry Research) discovered that in 41 REED+ Projects in Asia, Africa and the South America, 1500 jobs were created but 80% of Applicants were not qualified. This observation was made in an E-debate organized by CIFOR at the Forest Summit in Asia, May 2014. Many people go to schools obtain generic diplomats with less interest on Conservation studies. Among the 5000-10 000 graduates that leave Cameroonian Universities every year less than 5% of them come out with a qualification in conservation.

There are 38 Universities in Cameroon amongst which 8 states owned Universities. According to recent classifications from 4international College and Universities, (Online portal for graduates an youths) The state Universities figure among the best (University of Dschang, University of Yaoundé II Soa,University of  Douala,  University of  Yaoundé I,  University of Ngaoundéré, University of Maroua, Universityof Buea and University of Bamenda). All state Universities in Cameroon have either a school or a department of science which usher’s environmental and conservation studies. The most popular programmes in all the state universities include: Animal Biology, Zoology, Biochemistry, Environmental studies, microbiology and earth science.

The University of Bamenda has a more structured programme on environmental studies which goes right deep into touching specific areas such as tropical fisheries, mammalian ecology, Wildlife Habitat Management and Avian Ecology. State Universities retain between 40 to 80 students per programme each yeah. The lecturers are either recruited by the Ministry of Higher Education or The Universities themselves. More than 70% of lecturers at the State Universities are recruited by the state. In most of the cases the Minister of Higher Education often launch an open recruitment and seek for proposals from the University.

For Private Education, there are 30 private Universities in Cameroon with the most popular being catholic and protestant Universities. 5 out of 30 private universities offer environmental or conservation studies they include: The Higher Institute of Environmental Sciences (HIES); Pan African University of West Africa-Environment and agricultural development (MSc); Catholic University of Central Africa-Geography and Environmental Studies; Bamenda University of Science and Technology-Agronomy and Soil Science and Animal Science and Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERUDEF)-Environmental programme. HIES and ERUDEF go as far as offering studies in  conservation policy and Conservations communications the Institutes also involve in youth trainings and sensitization in schools.

The Ministries and NGOs liaising to come into play

Ministry of Forestry and Wild Life, West Regional Office, Powering conservation Education

The Ministries of forestry and Wild Life and the Ministry of The Environment in collaboration with other partners and NGOs are working to see into it that Cameroonians take cog naissance on how they could live in harmony with nature without destroying it. The two ministries jointly power two important schools: The National School of Waters and Forests of Cameroon and the Institute of Faune in Garoua. These schools train forest controllers, forest experts, guards, and administrators. Flavien Ngibaot is one of the Graduates from The National School of Waters and Forests of Cameroon; he is now the National Brigade Commander for forestry control operations in the Ministry of Forestry and Wild Life. He is the main man behind the fight against illegal exploitation of the Bibinga tree and the campaign against wild Life poaching in the Littoral region. Under his command, the ministry has ceased thousands of wild animals, guns and finned irrational logging companies. The Ministries also supports environmental awareness raising magazines every year. Examples of such Magazines Include: “Les defenseurs de L’environnement” (The Defenders of the Environment) “Le Selviculteur” (The Forester) Magazine and “Lettre Verte” (The Green Letter) produced by the Ministry of Forestry and Wild Life.

 “Restructuring measures taken since 2012 have been strengthened and are already bearing fruits” said the Minister of forestry and wild Life Ngole Philip Ngwese, in the Ministry’s The Green Letter Magazine No 28 of June 2013. The minister also added that the fight against illegal exploitation of forest and wild life is now witnessing progress. Thanks to the various sensitization efforts. In 2012, The Ministry of Forestry and Wild Life in Collaboration with The IUCN and the Wildlife Conservation Society introduced a new course: Management of Protected Species in Central Africa at the University Teaching Complex of Dr. Alphonse Mackanga Missandzou, situated north of Lope National Park in Gabon. This programme trained and graduated 15 laureates on the 22nd of December 2014. Amongst them, 4 were Cameroonians with three from the Ministry of Forestry and wildlife.

There is an estimate of 20 NGOs that promote conservation education in Cameroon amongst them we can name: UNICEF, CIFOR, WWF, GEF, UNDP, CIDI, TRAFFIC, ICENECDEV (The International Centre for Environmental Education and Community Development) SHUMAS (Strategic Humanitarian Services in Cameroon), Plan International, Wild Life Conservation Society (WCS), Green Cameroon ENRUDEF (Environment and Rural Development Foundation) ZSL (London Zoological Society) and LAGA (The Last Great Ape Organization, Cameroon). These organizations organize sensitization campaigns, competitions and events in Primary secondary and Tertiary schools sponsor Youth Magazines and offer conservation books to libraries, scholarships and trainings to students and pupils to follow the light of conservation.

We can point out WWF Central Africa Programme’s promising effort on Conservation Education in Cameroon. Through their Youth Strategy and the Youth Volunteer and scholarship programmes, WWF have since 2011 offered more than 10 Cameroonians International Internships and more than 4 scholarships at the level of Higher Education. Their efforts are saluted by many Cameroonian including me; I will encourage the government and other organizations to follow their example.

WHY AFRICAN SEA AND AIR PORTS NEEDS TO BE PERKED UP WITH LATEST SOPHISTICATED TECHNOLOGIES TO STRENGTHEN THEIR CAPACITIES TO FIGHT POACHING, ILLEGAL TRAFFIC OF IVORY AND RHINO HORNS

By Israel Bionyi

The Illegal Trade in Ivory and Rhino Horn TRAFFIC report for 2014 recommends sophisticated technologies and law enforcement techniques in African sea and airports to fight against poaching and Illegal Traffic.

Lagos International sea port, the largest sea port in West and Central Africa one of the different port of Transit for rhino horn and Ivory

 Despite all the heavy trade band pressure sounded on some Asian Countries, the trade in Ivory and Rhino horn still remains very fluid. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora(CITES) announced in July 2014 serious trade sanctions on Thailand and Bangkok, if they don’t regularize their Ivory sector which sparks a lot of poachers.

TRAFFIC say it has since January 2014 recorded 18,747 Ivory seizure cases and 2,083 non Ivory elephant products and most of the Traffic is done via the sea and at the airports at time. With the Container shipping business representing the greatest  menace for the fight against this trade with less than 5% the ports applying the CITES law enforcement action for all containers entering and leaving the ports. In August 2013, The Guardian UK reported China seized a shipment of illegal ivory, rhino horns and leopard skins worth $5.3m (£3.4m) from Nigeria. They media adds “authorities at Hong Kong's port confiscated 1,120 ivory tusks, 13 rhino horns and five leopard skins weighing a total of 2,266 kilograms (4,997 pounds)”

Rhino horns, Ivory and Leopard skins Seized in from a Nigerian Container at the Port of Hong Kong in August 2013. Photograph: Alex Hofford/EPA

Tracing the routes of this illegal trade,  TRAFFIC points out, from 2000 through 2008 there have been significant export activity spring from Atlantic Ocean seaports in Central and West Africa, particularly Douala (Cameroon), Lagos (Nigeria) and Accra (Ghana), and from Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) to Belgium by air. These sea and airports are used because they lack expensive technical equipment such as cargo scanner machines that can scan containers, dogs’ sniffers system and sophisticated Xrays.

Even though optimistic about the African the Future of African port systems, The Managing Director of the Douala Port Authority; Josué Youmba admits the Douala port needs to step up.  In a release published last week on the Douala Port Authority’s website, he said “Formerly, government was in charge of all port operations. But since the 1999 port reforms the management of some of these port operations were privatized. Unfortunately some of the private companies managing some of the activities have not been investing to match their equipments with the evolution of the volume of traffic at the port.”

“Movements of ivory within Africa involved a great number of countries, and considerable trafficking between Sudan and Egypt, a major unregulated ivory market within Africa that is far removed from any elephant populations, was also evident. On Africa’s east coast, Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique also emerge in this period as exporters of ivory from the African continent. South Africa, however, is the most prominent country owing to one exceptional 7.1 tonne movement of ivory from Malawi through the port of Durban to Singapore, and then reportedly for onward shipment to Japan” says Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC scientist.He adds that China has replaced Japan as World’s Number one in the trade, the highest end market

The Routes of Traffic in Ivory and Rhino Horn from Africa to other parts of the World Credit, TRAFFIC

.“There have been years without any real action on the ground when it comes to controlling the illegal ivory market,” said Oeystein Stoerkersen, chairman of CITES’s governing body during the CITES conference in Geneva of July 2014. His organization has set Thailand an August 2015 deadline to respect regulations or Face severe sanctions.

WWF leaked this year that Current Thai law allows ivory from domesticated Thai elephants to be sold, making it simple to dry-clean poached African ivory. WWF analyst, Colman O’Criodain who was also participant at the CITES Summit in Geneva said “Thailand’s market is fuelling the illegal assault on African elephants,”

The latest traffic report for 2014 released last month say 72% of Central Africa’s Elephant population has been wiped over the last 12 years. And the Tanzanian Selous Game Reserve has lost 57,000 from the 70,000 animals that were left in 2007, 68.6% in 7 years time. This represents an enormous loss for Africa whose Rhino and elephant population continue to shrink. The report also identifies the trade estimated to USD 5 - 20 billion per year.

TRAFFIC also demands more judicial actions to be taken on those who are apprehended doing this trade. It decries only 9 of the 78 cases registered since 2009 by the TRAFFIC's Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS) have been trialed.

But not all hopes are gone. There is good news for African governments who needs to deploy massive financial and human efforts to fight this Illegal trade. Since June 2014, UNEP has identified High-tech equipments, cheap and sustainable methods that can counter poaching efforts without requiring armies of rangers or risking lives. They include: acoustic traps, mobile technology, mikrokopters, radio frequency identification tags, encrypted data digital networks, camera traps, DNA testing, radio collars, metal scanners, and satellite imagery. Well elaborated on UNEP's Website.

Protecting Elephants could Encourage Forest Growth in the Central African Region

Central Africa need elephants to increase her Oxygen and food productivity hence, fight climate change.

Today the forest in the Central African region is disappearing very fast. “Between 1990 and 2000, approximately 91,000 km² of forests were lost. That represents an area about 3 times the size of Belgium”.

The significant deforestation and the decline in the elephant populations is having enormous impacts on the biodiversity of the region. In Cameroon where, I base my research, 13% of the forest has already gone (between 1990 and 2005) and the Central African region has lost 60% of its elephant population to poaching in the last 10 Years (Maisels et Al. 2013).

         Elephants spread almost all the trees at the Bouba Ndjida national park in Cameroon

 

 The CITES MIKE Programme says, The Central African Region is the highest zone to have recorded illegal elephant killings, since 2002 comparatively to other zones of observation in Africa. In 2013, Cameroon experienced the massacre of 400 elephants in the Bouba Ndjida National park.

There are only 90 000 to 150 000 elephants now left in the Central African Region. This remark is drawn from comparing different reports about African elephants from: IUCN, CITES, African Elephant Specialist Group, Elephant Trade Information system (ETIS) and the Elephant Database.

"A few trees are declining because elephant disappear is of course detrimental- have massive impact on the forest ecosystem. However, elephants going extinct means that the competitive balance of many many species, arguably over 100 in central Africa will be tipped in favor of species poor idiotically” Highlights of Blake and Campos-Arceiz ,authors of a paper on African and Asian elephant seed dispersal in Acta Oecologica.

Elephant dung germinating plants in the Ntem forest of Cameroon

 Elephants are termed by IUCN and WWF as ecologically important species, which play a vital role in supporting other species and ecosystems. Elephants have a great seed nursing and transportation potential, necessary for forests growth. The heavy weight land Mammals are among the greatest seed dispersers of the earth, findings confirmed by recent studies from scientists. 

Seed dispersal, ecologists believe is the movement or transport of seeds away from the parent plant through biotic (living things) or abiotic vectors. Elephants are biotic vectors and transport thousands of seeds through their digestive system and send the seeds out through their guts.
The dung then serves as incubator for the seeds to germinate absorbing Water; heat and other gases like CO₂ it may need for its survival. 

Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz, believes ‘African forest elephants are the ultimate seed dispersers’ and confirms they disperse seeds in the most efficient way.

From the ecological perspective, scientists argue that elephants are very important for forest growth because they spread seeds hundreds of kilometers away from the mother plant. The more their population and habitat increase the greater the forest expansion. Elephants in the Congo are able to spread seeds as far as 57 kilometers (35.4 miles) from the mother plant.

20 percent of global warming is caused by deforestation. If REDD+ the UN programme for reforestation, could join forces with the governments of the Central African (CA ) Region and other NGOs to stop deforestation and poaching, then that will be an impulsive solution to fight against climate change. 

Why not food security? “Forest and tree ecosystems underpin the provision of a range of services, and as such, when appropriately managed, can make vital contributions to food production”. Says Foli et al, in their Environmental Evidence paper 2014. The paper also added the land productivity “depends on pollinator diversity.” it estimates 46 per cent of total agricultural land still retains at least 10 per cent tree cover.

But before that, they have to empower the government by helping to eradicate corruption. According to Transparency International’s CPI for 2013, there is likely to be high level of deforestation and logging in countries where governance is weak and vice versa. Most of the Countries in the CA zone are among the most corrupt countries in the world.