The forests of the Bamougoum Chiefdom in the western highlands of Cameroon have been sacred grounds for generations.
Renowned for their natural beauty and rich biodiversity, these landscapes are also home to wildlife, including great apes, civets and pangolins.
However, decades of deforestation, unsustainable farming practices and agricultural expansion threaten the survival of these forests and the species that inhabit them.
This upheaval also comes at a cost to local residents, particularly women and youth, some 80 per cent of whom depend on natural resources for their livelihoods.
Historically, these forests were protected through customary law as sacred sites for traditional rituals. However, population growth and a lack of sustainable land management regulations have tested the strength of customary laws.
Intensive farming and overuse of pesticides have damaged the soil and polluted nearby waterways, says Jacques Waouo, Team Manager at Rainforest Alliance in the Western Highlands of Cameroon. Sixty per cent of the sacred forests have been lost in the last 30 years. Now, there are only small pockets of trees set amid coffee, maize and bean farms.
Conservationists estimate Cameroon must protect 7,600 hectares of land across the regions of Mount Bamboutos and Mount Bana-Bangant-Bangou.
To help meet this ambitious plan, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) have teamed up with the non-profit Rainforest Alliance and the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development of Cameroon, among others, on two forest conservation projects.
Advancing womens rights through community-led landscape management in Mount Bamboutos and its sister project, Championing community-led landscape management in Cameroon, aim to strengthen the economic and social rights of women and young people through the promotion of sustainable, community-based land management.
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Nature loss, civil strife and climate change also disproportionately affect women and girls, who have fewer resources to adapt to changing conditions. Gender inequality means that although women in Cameroon play a key role in growing crops, livestock farming and processing forest products, they are often denied equal access to education, financing, land rights and training in sustainable land management practices.
To address the problem, the two projects are working to ensure women have equal leadership opportunities in land management and better access to economic opportunities. By training them to process non-timber forest products into goods such as soap and avocado oil, the projects aim to encourage women in the region to become financially independent while also gaining skills to become better custodians of the forests their livelihoods depend on.
Women are the backbone of society, says Fomado Virginie, who teaches sustainable agricultural practices. We have to educate women on how to conserve the forests so they can [earn income] from products that have been made from the forests.
The UNEP-backed projects are benefiting more than 3,000 people, including 1,500 women and youth. Many are involved in female-led local enterprises that process farm and forest products or renewable biofuels.
Another major aim of these projects is to enhance the legal protection status for key biodiversity areas. Some 7,600 hectares of biodiversity-rich land are marked for protection across the Western Highlands and South Region.
The hope is that, over time, forest and farming communities will develop alternatives for sustainable landscape use that will reduce pressure on natural resources across the wider regioncovering a target area of 53,000 hectares.
The projects are part of ongoing investments mobilized by UNEP through GEF and other donors, to promote the protection and sustainable management of the Congo basin forests.
Spanning 530 million hectares across six countries, the Congo Basin absorbs nearly 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, constituting one of the largest carbon sinks in the world. The basin is also home to 70 per cent of Africas forest cover and one in every five species on the planet.
Land restoration is a key part of the theme of this years World Environment Day on 5 June. It is one of the most important ways of delivering nature-based solutions for food insecurity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and biodiversity loss.
Some 3.2 billion people, or 40 per cent of the global population, are impacted by land degradation. Those hardest hit are also those least equipped to cope: rural communities, smallholder farmers and the extremely poor. A quarter of the Earths surface has seen reduced productivity due to land degradation, greatly affecting food security and livelihoods.
The Congo basin is a globally significant biome that we simply cannot afford to lose, says Doreen Lynn Robinson, Head of Biodiversity and Land at UNEP. By addressing the fundamental drivers of deforestation and degradation, such as unsustainable agricultural practices, these projects will go a long way in improving the economic plight of women in Cameroon while helping to mitigate climate change and protecting biodiversity.
