Conservator Reacts to Elephant’s Killing of Eco-guard at Mt Cameroon National Park

The Conservator of the Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP), Charles-Innocent Memvi Abessolo, has expressed grief and distress over the death of one of his Ecoguards, Tchawou Henry, breaking Monday March 29, 2021, following an attack by a supposed female elephant while carrying out biomonitoring.

“It’s really a bad situation…really difficult to explain! This is a situation we are not use to; it is the first time we are having this kind of situation where an elephant or any other animal kills an eco-guard since I became a Conservator,” Mr. Abessolo said in an interview granted VoN News.

As to the circumstances that led to the attack of the Ecoguard, the Conservator said an incident report is still awaited from the biomonitoring team that was in the field with deceased Mr. Tchawou. This report, according to him, will equally enlighten the Park Service on the next step to take and measures that can be put in place to prevent any such incident.

Quizzed on the possible effect of this sinister incident on biomonitoring activities in the Park, Mr. Abessolo, noted that “As foresters, we know that situations like that are likely to happen; we know that our work is in the forest where there are wildlife including elephants and other species. We just need to assess and know the risks involved, and how they can be managed”.

The Mount Cameroon National Park boss however, called on adjacent communities to remain calm, while also cautioning that the death shouldn’t give a green light for the killing of animal species in the Park. “We need to conserve nature.; we know that without nature we cannot talk of any sustainable living. It’s a very sad situation but we will keep looking for measures to prevent any such happening in the future,” he promised. Meanwhile, the corpse of Mr. Tchawou Henry is at the Buea Regional Hospital Mortuary pending interment.

The Mt Cameroon National Park is an  IUCN Category II protected area , and one of the most important and threatened centres of biodiversity and endemism in Cameroon and Africa as a whole. It is host to a significant number of globally threatened and endemic species; 10 species of large mammals including endangered Africa forest elephant (Loxodontacyclotis)and Cameroon Nigeria chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and 210 bird species including endangered parrot  (Pternistis camerunensis) and francolin (Francolinus camerunensis).