SUPPORTING LOCAL COMMUNITY
Creating alternative sustainable livelihoods
WORKING TOGETHER FOR WILDLIFE
We firmly believe that no conservation efforts can survive without working in partnership with the local community. By empowering communities to participate and run programmes rather than just be beneficiaries, they come to truly understand the benefit of conserving flora and fauna. That’s why for more than 15 years we have been working with the local community to protect local wildlife. This project, the Green Project, improves animal welfare and reduces wildlife poaching and poverty in the local community.
Community Green Project
We create alternative livelihoods to hunting and animal trading by employing the local community to provide browse and crop by-products to our primates. Currently, we provide employment to around 100 community members, growing year on year.
Wild Plants: Aframomum
In short, Aframomum sp. (Zingiberaceae) is a wild plant that occurs naturally in lowland rain forests and mountain areas. We work with former hunters to harvest this plant from the forest, which in turn provides employment and income to them and their families.
Aframomum grows naturally in secondary forests and does not need to be planted. During harvesting, the plants are cut in a way that allows them to grow again. Then in a few months, the plant is mature once again. For this project, aframomum is harvested three times a week in Batoke (Isongo). And this is in the buffer zone of Mount Cameroon National Park.
Significantly, this leaf has anti-parasitical, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties. Therefore, it helps to maintain gastrointestinal balance. Furthermore, primates love to eat this wild plant! And at the LWC, we provide all our primates including the gorillas, drills, mandrills, guenons and baboons with aframomum every day!
Crop By-Products
We predominantly work with local women to harvest the by-products (leaves and stems) of existing crops for the primates in rehabilitation. For example this includes potato, cassava and papaya leaves. Because the leaves are harvested from existing crop fields and have no economic value, the women are able to earn more money without creating extra work. Furthermore, this also prevents further encroachment of farmland into the surrounding forests. Therefore, this is a truly green and sustainable community project.
Ultimately, the leaves provide essential nutrition and mimics natural feeding patterns for primates.
Green Project Annual Report
We produce a specific annual report for our community Green Project. In this report we highlight the year’s successes including number of members, amount of aframomum and browse purchased, and how this project contributes to animal welfare and poverty reduction.
Local Employment
Limbe Wildlife Centre is one of the largest employers in conservation in the South-West Region of Cameroon. Between the keepers, veterinary team, and other staff, the Government of Cameroon Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) and the Pandrillus Foundation, employs 35 local people. This means that 35 families directly benefit from wildlife protection and see wildlife conservation as a sustainable source of income.
ZIPPORAH AKALA – Zipporah coordinates rural people engaged in sustainable livelihoods supported by the Limbe Wildlife Centre
“6 years ago, I took over from my husband, Daniel, who was himself coordinator of the Green project and my role is now to make sure that enough browse arrives at the Centre. I coordinate with the women of Batoke who cultivate potatoes and cassava. We wake up at dawn 3 days per week to harvest the crop leaves, Aframomum and others. We also help control the spread of invasive the Trumpet tree.
Joining the Project helped us a lot! I can pay the school fees of my four children, pay the doctor bills, guarantee my family meals every single day and we even improved our house with cement floor.
I want to say a huge thank to the Centre. I cannot express how much the Green Project helps me, my family, all of us in Batoke.”