|
The LH area
is one of the poorest areas in Cameroon. Very low levels of income
(usually less than $ 0.5 a day), limited land management skills,
lack of credit facilities, lack of market access and lack of medical
care, characterize all the communities in the region especially
those bordering the forest areas and those completely lacking access
routes. Their economy is essentially that of hunting, gathering
and fishing. Their agricultural potentials are low especially as
they continue to farm on marginal lands prone to landslides every
year and their economic options are low due to lack of market access.
However, the vast non-timber forest products present one of the
opportunities for exploration to raise the incomes of the rural
people.
The majority
of the peasants have no access to credit facilities. The Cameroon
Credit Union League (CAMCCUL), the main micro-finance institution
in the country field, has offices located very far away from most
of these communities and can only serve a very tiny proportion of
the over 30,000 indigenous people living here.
Most people
here rely on an informal network of money lenders who often charge
very high interest rates (> 50%) and will seize poor farmer's
properties if interest payments or debts are not repaid. In this
context many farmers and young people have no choice but to encroach
into the neighbouring protected areas and the marginal lands in
search of farm land at little or no cost. Struggling with debts,
these local farmers, who for the most part have no access routes,
have no choice but to resort to heavy poaching, poisoning of rivers
for fishing, illegal logging and land encroachment. This is causing
the unsustainable exploitation of the wildlife resources, especially
the endangered fauna.
In the Highlands
area the continual cropping of marginal lands leads to several landslides
each year which have, in the recent past, led to hundreds of deaths
and destruction of houses, productive forests and arable land. Research
conducted between 1999 and 2002 has shown that game harvesting is
twice the sustainable off-take. This research has also shown that
one of the legally protected species, the leopard, in the neighbouring
wildlife sanctuary, has become extinct. There are fears that another
protected species, the giant pangolin, may also have become extinct.
This situation can only be reversed through the improvement of the
socio-economic environment of the adjacent local communities. The
conservation objectives of the area will be compromised if nothing
is done.
Within this
context, ERuDeF realized that the problem of debt and poverty had
to be dealt with if livelihoods and the endangered biodiversity
of the region are to be fully protected. It is within this framework
that ERuDeF is seeking to establish an innovative community-based
led micro-credit system that will be opened to all the local communities
and even those having no collateral as required by many micro-finance
institutions. ERuDeF is helping to organize the communities
across the region into constituted community-based institutions
that will facilitate the process of all the local people having
access to this credit facility.
This credit
system, called the Lebialem Highlands Environmental Protection Fund
(LHEPF), will be run by a democratically elected committee that
will be composed of at least 50% women. The women are the most affected
in terms of poverty and more than 55% of the women are found below
the poverty line.
The main objective of the LHEPF is to promote sustainable income
generating activities and reduce illegal harvesting of wildlife
resources and cropping of marginal lands. This credit system is
part of a wider programme of micro-enterprise support, capacity
building and sustainability being led by ERuDeF. ERuDeF is seeking
financial support to help implement these activities.
ERuDeF's sustainable
development programme activities are meant to improve livelihood
sustainability and increase the local community members' capacities
to repay loans, remain solvent and expand on their existing micro-enterprises.
This project will provide both start-up grants to cooperating farmers
and youths and credit facilities to enable them to expand on their
micro-enterprises.
The micro-credit
system operates on the following principles: local people get loans
for ecologically beneficial and income generating micro projects
provided they do not poach or crop on marginal lands and or log
illegally. Very low interest rates of less than 5% will be charged
generally. Impoverished farming groups with no collateral will be
given start-up grants. Criteria for selecting loan and start-up
grants recipients will include the viability of the proposed activity,
repayment capacity and market demand. The LHEPF will also establish
what actions will be taken if members fail to pay back loans or
meet environmental criteria.
ERuDeF will
ensure that beneficiaries will focus on mixed cropping and on cultivating
products with high market value but with low environmental impact.
Such systems involve community forestry, agroforestry and consist
of planting a combination of fast & slow growing tree species
on marginal lands. This will permit them to get an average minimum
income from fast growing species while the high value but slow growing
hardwood species will mature with time. This approach will also
allow the land to restore itself. The micro-credit initiative will
also support a system of local enterprises which yield high-return
products with low impact on the fragile highlands environments.
ERuDeF will promote such enterprises as beekeeping, mushroom cultivation,
livestock, tree nurseries, snail rearing, eco-tourism, non-timber
forest products processing etc.
This is an innovative mechanism through which micro-credit initiatives
will be interwoven with wider efforts to improve the incomes of
lower and most affected impoverished groups and jobless rural youths.
Sustainability will be ensured by aligning ecologically sound micro-enterprises
with the actual demands of the market and biodiversity management.
This is a three-year
pilot initiative which will serve over 30,000 farm families. After
this start-up phase, the revolving fund system will become sustainable
as money given out during the first year will be repaid in the second
year - and the cycle will continue. The main micro-enterprises will
include cultivation of cola nuts, tree nurseries and reforestation,
beekeeping, NTFP processing and marketing, mushroom farming, snail
rearing, wildlife domestication, livestock, agro-forestry and community
forestry development and exploitation.
The Environment
and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF) is a Cameroonian non profit
organisation formed in 1999 as a membership organisation. Its mission
is to conserve wildlife and protect fragile environments and to
improve upon the wellbeing of indigenous peoples in particular and
the quality of human life on earth in the regions where it operates.
Its focal programmes include biodiversity conservation, forest landscape
restoration, sustainable development, women and gender and education
and training. ERuDeF staff, members, its associates and partners
have over a decade of experience in the implementation and management
of conservation and rural development projects in Cameroon. Its
expertise expands to include but not limited to finance, project
development, sustainable development, conservation, gender and education.
ERuDeF can be
contacted @
P.O. Box 102
Menji, Lebialem Division and/or P.O. Box 189 Buea, South West Province,
Cameroon.
Tel: 237 738 74 53; 237 760 67 13;
Fax: 237 332 27 47.
Email: erudef@yahoo.com or forest_erudef@yahoo.com
|
|
|
|
