Cameroon is home to some of Central Africa’s most important ecosystems for biodiversity conservation and climate regulation—from the forests of the Congo Basin to the coastal mangroves of the Cameroon Estuary.
The Mengamé Gorilla Sanctuary protects nearly 130,000 hectares of forest along the border with Gabon and provides habitat for 36 species of large mammals, including gorillas, chimpanzees and elephants. Further east, Boumba-Bek National Park, covering 238,000 hectares, forms one of the country’s largest protected landscapes together with Nki National Park. Along the coast, the 93,550 hectares of mangroves in the Cameroon Estuary support rich aquatic biodiversity, protect communities from flooding and act as a vital blue carbon ecosystem.
Yet these ecosystems are under growing pressure. Around Mengamé and Boumba-Bek, the expansion of cash crops—particularly cocoa—combined with challenges in the artisanal timber sector, including weak traceability, limited access to formal markets and difficulties meeting legal requirements, is increasing pressure on forest resources. In the Cameroon Estuary, rapid urban expansion around Douala is driving different but equally urgent threats: sand extraction, overfishing and the progressive degradation of mangroves, which have already lost 14% of their area over fifteen years.
Behind these environmental challenges lies a deeper governance and livelihood challenge. Communities living alongside these ecosystems depend directly on forests, farmland and coastal resources for food and income, yet they often lack access to sustainable economic opportunities and meaningful participation in decisions affecting their territories. Without viable alternatives, households remain vulnerable to activities that gradually undermine the natural resources on which their future depends.
Women are central to the protection of these landscapes. They play a major role in family farming, food processing and the everyday management of natural resources, while carrying valuable knowledge of forests, plants and local agricultural practices. Yet they remain largely excluded from forest-based economic opportunities and environmental decision-making spaces, despite their essential role in building long-term conservation solutions.
ASD supports communities living around the Mengamé Gorilla Sanctuary and Boumba-Bek National Park to take a more active role in protecting biodiversity and managing natural resources sustainably.
The organisation strengthens collaboration between communities and conservation actors by building local capacity for environmental monitoring and decision-making. Thirty forest rangers have been trained to use monitoring tools including GPS, drones and the Forest Watcher application, while communities from 15 surrounding villages have also been involved in these approaches, creating stronger links between local knowledge and formal conservation systems.
Through the RELEMDOT network, ASD is also helping transform the artisanal timber sector by supporting more responsible harvesting practices, improving compliance with legal frameworks and strengthening the traceability of forest products.
Women are at the centre of ASD’s approach: not only as farmers and resource managers, but as leaders shaping more sustainable futures for their communities.
Around Boumba-Bek National Park, approximately 50 women have been trained in agroecological practices adapted to local conditions, including improved farming techniques, sustainable soil management and livelihood diversification. In Northern Cameroon, ASD supports more than 200 producers, around 75% of whom are women, in adopting climate-resilient agricultural practices adapted to dryland environments.
These approaches strengthen household food security, create new sources of income and reduce pressure on forests by providing alternatives to unsustainable resource use.
ASD’s work with rural communities highlighted a key challenge: supporting better agricultural practices is not enough if producers cannot access markets that allow them to benefit from their own production.
To address this gap, NG ECO Prod was created as an independent social enterprise extending the impact of ASD’s community-based work. The company purchases part of the production from supported farmers—particularly rural women producers—and transforms it into higher-value products, including dried spices, natural seasonings, compost and other agro-food products.
By creating reliable market opportunities, NG ECO Prod encourages producers to continue adopting sustainable agricultural practices while ensuring that more economic value remains within local communities.
This approach connects agroecology, circular economy principles and biodiversity conservation, demonstrating that protecting ecosystems can also create viable economic opportunities.
ASD recognises that long-term conservation depends on building environmental awareness across generations.
In the Cameroon Estuary, the organisation has engaged nearly 1,500 children and family members across seven schools through environmental education initiatives focused on biodiversity, waste management and coastal ecosystem protection.
By connecting conservation, local governance, women’s leadership and sustainable livelihoods, ASD helps communities become active guardians of the ecosystems that sustain them.
Trained in forestry sciences as well as water and sanitation, Geneviève Ndjiki Wéladji has dedicated her work to strengthening the role of communities in protecting Cameroon’s ecosystems.
Through ASD, she advances an approach rooted in a simple conviction: biodiversity conservation can only succeed when the people who live alongside these ecosystems have the knowledge, opportunities and decision-making power to protect them.
Her work brings together forest conservation, agroecology, sustainable livelihoods, local knowledge and women’s leadership. She believes that women and young people are not only affected by environmental challenges—they are essential actors in designing and implementing solutions.
For Geneviève, protecting biodiversity means recognising the expertise and leadership of those who care for these ecosystems every day, and creating the conditions for communities to become true partners in conservation.
“I believe that women are not only the first beneficiaries of biodiversity; they are its strongest guardians. When we invest in their knowledge, their capacities and their economic autonomy, they transform conservation into a true driver of sustainable development.”
— Geneviève Ndjiki Wéladji
