Country

Cameroon

Working title

Ambition and reality of participatory protected area approaches using Cameroon as an example

Research
cooperation
partner

KfW Development Bank (KfW Entwicklungsbank)

Region

Lobéké-National Park; southeast Cameroon

Background

Protected areas like national parks were in most cases established long before the time of
financial co-operation. Generally speaking, the guidelines of voluntariness and inclusion of the
indigenous population with regards to the protection goals were not followed. Some cases even saw
the usage of exclusionary approaches (fine and fence methods). Today co-management of
resources is the standard procedure, which combines protection and simultaneous sustainable
usage by the indigenous population. Because sustainable protection cannot succeed if it is in
conflict with the will of the local population, participatory management of protected areas is stateof-the-art. Using this technique, a situation which is not only advantageous on a global or national
scale, but also benefits the local (partly indigenous) population with long term pros outweighing
the cons.
Although this approach is very convincing in theory and works in the long run, the practical
implementation often faces diverse problems. For example, protected area management often
only brings lower, broad (income) benefits for the local population than anticipated. This often
results in conflicts, not only in Africa.

Goals

Methods/
Expected results

Research
cooperation
partner
Team expertise

Team leader

Lobéké-National Park is about preserving species-rich woodlands and their biodiversity. The
population is dependent on the outputs of these forests among others with regards to stabilizing
the water supply and climate.
Elaboration of concrete propositions for a better inclusion of the interests of the local (indigenous)
population, including autochthonous groups, in new financial co-operation-backed protected areas
and the management of these areas.
Stakeholder-analysis, Do-not-harm analysis, comparing protection-/utilization concepts and
identifying pitfalls / promising measures.
Practical recommendations are pronounced, how “neighbor promoting measures” (income
increasing, health, education etc.) can improve and become more efficient. Also, it has to be
examined, how autochthonous groups should be treated in comparison to other ethnic groups by
e.g. donors, in order to minimize conflicts.
In the context of protected area management, it will be necessary to ask how the inclusion of the
population can succeed, aiming at reducing activities which collide with the park rules, like hunting
the local animal population.
KfW-Development Bank, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS),
indigenous population
Multidisciplinary Team (7 pp.): Desirable are abilities in the areas of conflict and peace research,
conflict regulation and -prevention, mediation, concepts of nature conservation and integrated
forestry development, indigenous populations, agriculture and hunting, natural resource
management, qualitative social research, stakeholder analysis, interest in Africa and the French
language, no fear of cost calculations, open nature and conflicts.
Dr. Cosmas Kombat (38 j): Ecological Economist, co-team leader and Cameroonian master graduates
are under discussion.
Backstopping: Dr. Susanne Neubert