The Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF) and the Southwest Regional Delegation of Forestry
and Wildlife (MINFOF), August 2015, agreed to work more closely to improve the sustainability and conservation record of the newly created Tofala Hill Wildlife Sanctuary (THWS) in Lebialem Division, Southwest Region.
By Azore Opio
The partnership focuses on developing THWS’s management plan, exploring areas that need more technical and financial collaboration and how they relate to key biodiversity hotspots, (Tofala Hill Wildlife Sanctuary and the Proposed Mak-Betchou Wildlife Sanctuary), as a whole, and building benchmarks for biodiversity management across the complex focusing on landscape restoration and reforestation.
“The relationship aims to help ERuDeF and MINFOF to strengthen their sustainable environmental management and delivery of conservation outcomes, while enabling ERuDeF to increase its awareness and understanding of the conservation challenges facing the Lebialem Conservation Complex,” said Louis Nkembi, ERuDeF CEO, during a technical meeting on Wednesday, August 19, 2015 at the hall of the Southwest MINFOF Delegation.
Nkembi said it was an important meeting for the stakeholders to identify roles, improve visibility, responsibility and collaboration. He said together, ERuDeF and MINFOF would define a clear roadmap of activities for the management of THWS.
ERuDeF, whose operations span four regions of Cameroon (Southwest, West, Northwest and Littoral) covers the protection of endangered wildlife species, primarily the Cross River gorilla and the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee, and restoration of fragile ecosystems.
Although the two groups have worked closely before, they realised the need to harmonize their work plans so as to be able to manage sustainably the THWS, galvanize their efforts in biodiversity management of protected areas, generate support for conservation and help them increase their ecological protection interventions.
Setting out the idea behind the collaboration agreement, Southwest MINFOF Regional Delegate, Eben Ebai Samuel, said that collaboration to find sustainable solutions to environmental and conservation challenges, and cross-sector engagement are critical.
Amongst the resolutions taken at the end of the meeting were; the establishment of a joint annual work plan between the Divisional Delegation of Forestry & Wildlife for Lebialem and ERuDeF; establishment of a quarterly work plan from September to December 2015; the adaption of conservation management approaches being employed by the Programme for the Sustainable Management of the Natural Resources in the South West (PSMNRSW), WWF and WCS for use in the Lebialem Highlands Conservation Complex by ERuDeF and the local officials of MINFOF; regular joint planning and reporting framework established between the Divisional Delegation of Forestry and Wildlife for Lebialem and ERuDeF in order to improve on communication, implementation and reporting.
