VoNat & Partners Set to Conserve Endangered Ape, Preserve Pro-Conservation Traditional Knowledge in the Mount Cameroon Area with Community Kids & Youths

Press Release

VoNat & Partners Set to Conserve Endangered Ape, Preserve Pro-Conservation Traditional Knowledge in the Mount Cameroon Area with Community Kids & Youths

As the world grapples with increasing biodiversity conservation challenges, we at VoNat are pleased to announce the commencement of our new project, Saving Endangered Ape of the Mount Cameroon Area with Community Kids dubbed Keep the Apes Alive. This project will boost the interest of these youngsters in endangered ape and other wildlife species conservation while preserving pro-conservation traditional knowledge. It will also enhance the success of other conservation programmes in the Mount Cameroon Area & community involvement.

The Mount Cameroon National Park is host to one of the most endangered apes and the most endangered chimpanzee subspecies, Nigeria-Cameroon Chimpanzee (NCC). This great ape and other large mammals and endangered species like the forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), Pressus monkey (Allochrocebus preussi) parrot (Pternistis camerunensis) and francolin (Francolinus camerunensis) and Africa Zebrawood (Microberlinia bisulcata) are fast disappearing due to illegal hunting and exploitation. This is further compounded by the increasing adoption of Western values and the suppression of indigenous knowledge that is eroding the appetite for the long-standing historical and traditional conservation narratives that aided in species conservation before colonialism. We risk losing valuable local conservation knowledge possessed by the local people like folklore and taboos, which offer an indigenous conservation ethic and an effective means of conservation, if an urgent action is not taken.

We believe that kids & youths hold the key to the future conservation of species, and their involvement in conservation efforts is very crucial to the future sustainability of natural resources in the Mount Cameroon Area. With support from the New England Biolabs Foundation and Idea Wild, we will in the next 9 months (December 2021 to August 2022) engage some 50 kids and youths in the Mount Cameroon Area in saving the endangered NCC and other endangered species through orientation and education sessions on the ecology and conservation importance of NCC and other wildlife species. Visit will be made to the Mount Cameroon National Park for biomonitoring and to communities to gather local conservation knowledge about plants and animal species. We will also work with the youngsters to produce conservation poems, music, video reports, articles, magazine etc. All these will culminate in a media visitation to sensitize the community about conservation, and a closing/prize award ceremony amongst others.

It is hoped that through these, the youngsters will be reconnected to nature, and their appetite to take action against the depletion of endangered species in their communities triggered. Meanwhile, pro-conservation traditional knowledge will be preserved and handed down from generation to generation, and the success of other conservation programmes in the Mount Cameroon Area enhanced.