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Community Water Schemes, A Relief Effort

Community of Buea, Cameroon
Community of Buea, South West Region, Cameroon

According to the Water Resilience Coalition of the of the UN Global Compact, over two billion people around the world are living in water stressed areas.  Buea is a community situated on the slopes of Mount Cameroon with a population of more than 180,000 people, ranging from natives to non-natives…farmers and non-farmers, likewise pupils and students. This diversity of people depends on water for their livelihood and maintaining their activities. While the farmers place themselves at the top of the list in terms of priority as to who needs water most, the students and actors from the formal and informal sectors also make a stand on the issue of why their interests are a priority.

Presently, a water crisis is affecting almost every quarter and village in the sub-division, with the those of the average/low income and farmers feeling the pinch most acutely. Very often, the municipality suffers from a low water table, and springs, streams and drinkable rivers run completely dry during the dry season. This is believed to occur as a result of cutting down trees and exposing these water sources to direct sunlight, while the second school of thought holds that climate change is the major factor to the water crisis faced by the municipality.

Whether or not water sources are being exposed or climate change is affecting the water ration, the community water scheme has stood the test of time over the years. However, now, in the midst of the water crisis, public taps dry up with very little or no warning, and communities (both urban and rural) are looking for rescue. The majority of villages along the slope of Mount Fako (Mt. Cameroon) depend on community water catchment systems, which today are agreed to be the most reliable and accessible schemes. Some community members confirm that they have not drank water from public taps for over a decade because they went dry and sometimes the taps are overcrowded which often result in fights.  With water catchment systems they avoid these issues.

To sustain the interest, activities and the posterity of community water catchments, it is important to ensure the engagement of the locals and ownership of such projects for proper management.

Taking into account the fact that the dry season is around the corner and the water crisis is bound to intensify, community members recently carried out collective work to enhance the volume of water leaving the catchment to the tank and reducing the amount of water lost between the source and the catchment. After the exercise, the locals where happy with the quality of work they accomplished. This confirms that the amount of water entering the tank has increased as it takes much less time than before for the tanks to be full and the taps can run more frequently than before. Such initiatives are classified as best practices towards sustainable rural development because if such actions are not encouraged, it is argued that half of the world’s population will live in water stressed communities (Water Resilience Coalition).

Agriculture: Plantain Multiplication

Constructing a propagator to raise plantain plantlets

 

Today, youths constitute over 60% of Africa’s population and Cameroon alike. This group of persons are also considered vulnerable to violent conflict, crime, abuse and what have you. On the other hand, they are extremely resourceful in community development. It is with this in mind that we took the challenge to educate and engage 10 youths of the municipality in the domain of agriculture; specifically, on plantain propagation.

Buea is considered to be one of the most suitable agricultural space in the country. In fact, it is referred to as Cameroon in miniature due to its rich volcanic soil and other environmental variables that support crop diversity. With the increasing population in the area as a result of socio-political conflict, education, job hunting, or socio-cultural ties (to name but a few), the demand for food supply is on a daily increase; likewise the demand for farming space.

In this light, efficiency in food production through intensive rather than extensive farming is very paramount if we are to effectively meet up with these demands and at the same time make peace with the environment.

Through this, these youths have been trained and have acquired the necessary skills and know-how on how to select good mother plants for multiplication, how to prepare the comb and how to construct a propagator; in short, they have mastered the winning process. These stills will ensure a high and quality output, resistant plantlets and disease-free seedlings — thus, a cost-effective and space efficient farming system. This program is intended to train over 2500 youths and to provide each of the trainees with 100 plantain plantlets after every training session by 2025.

This will facilitate a peer education process among the youths, thus creating a positive behavioral influence. Moreover, we intend to continue educating, empowering and engaging our young people in positive developmental activities like smart agriculture, modern beekeeping, sustainable ecotourism and live skill development. The engagement of youths in meaningful community or live skill development activities like this is to help reduce their risk of vulnerability.

 

 

The Mount Cameroon region of Africa is world renown for many reasons.  It is one of the world’s most impressive active volcanoes, rising from sea level to its 4100m summit, and due in large part to this great elevational gradient it is an area of exceptional biodiversity.  But just as importantly, Mount Cameroon is also known as a culturally rich area with much associated folklore.

Newly-planted Magic Tree
Newly-planted Magic Tree

One piece of local folklore revolves around a solitary tree that once grew high on the steep slopes of the mountain.  It was a “mgbeli ya vako” or “magic tree”, and was locally named “éyeh ya teke muteh” after a hunter named Teke Muteh who first used the magic tree as his resting point.  This Magic Tree was one of the most cherished and visited sites on the mountain.  According to local legend, it was believed to be mystical because whenever the locals visited the mountain, they found it very difficult to get to the tree since it appeared that the tree was moving away from them as they moved towards it.  To the locals, the tree was an important point for resting, just as it had been for Teke Muteh.  Visitors had also used this point for resting and listening to local folklore and buying souvenirs.

Regrettably, some years back, some unknown persons vandalized and cut down this revered tree.  Due to the historical and cultural significance of the site, Global Hand Cameroon in collaboration with the Mount Cameroon National Park Service saw reason to revive the legend by planting a symbolic tree where the Magic Tree once stood.  This new Magic Tree will carry on the stories and traditions that are such an integral part of the park and the lives of the local people.

 

Community Engagement Towards Natural Resource Management

The Bantu people who settled around Mount Cameroon in the late 17th and early 18th centuries were drawn primarily by the abundance of resources they found in this lush area. Wildlife was plentiful and hunting was a priority activity. As time went on, the traditional hunting techniques which used only natural materials gave way to more efficient methods which included the use of wire snares, den-guns and dogs. These new techniques greatly increased the chances of making a kill.

Initially, this worked well. The vastness of the area permitted the hunters to establish large hunting grounds, and a single hunter could deploy between 150 and 500 snares or traps. Over the long term, however, this large-scale trapping was not sustainable, and wildlife numbers diminished critically. Since it was not easy to check so many traps regularly due to the difficult terrain, the traps ended up killing much wildlife regardless of age, sex or status (pregnant or not).

This unsustainable trend is now being reversed through the efforts of community-based organizations such as Global Hand Cameroon, as well as other institutions such as the Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP). According to Mr. Ikome Nelson, Collaborative Management Unit Head of MCNP, the Program for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (PSMNR) has introduced a sustainable livelihood package that supports hunters by providing livestock, agriculture and vocational training as alternative income sources.

As part of this project, some identified hunters have already been trained in their various areas of interest. And due to the envisaged benefits of this initiative, hunters from two of the four targeted villages have collaborated with the park service to dismantle and remove their traps from around and within the national park. In that joint effort, the hunters handed over 3500 wire snares to the park service.

Wildlife and communities alike are benefitting from this very positive new initiative.

 

Mount Cameroon is one of many important watersheds in West Africa and is critical to the people of South West Cameroon for their water supply. In the rural communities, people depend on drinking sources such as springs, streams, rivers and lakes. In urban towns and cities, over ninety percent of the city dwellers depend on secondary drinking sources such as pipe-born water. The ever-continuous running streams and rivers have long shaped the infrastructural development and agricultural patterns of these communities.

In recent times, however, increases in population and farming fields have negatively affected the traditional infrastructural patterns. Firstly, since places like Buea are cosmopolitan towns, the rapid increase in population has necessitated an expansion of infrastructure to accommodate more people. To meet up with this, individuals (especially immigrants from outside the region) have neglected to consider the indigenous settlement patterns which took into consideration environmental risk factors such as the overflow of running rivers.

Secondly, an increasing population has led to higher demands for agricultural produce and thus an increase in the size and number of agricultural fields. However, communities within this area are located on the slopes of the mountain and thus face the real challenge of dealing with severe erosion from run-off or overflow from the rivers. The indisputable need for food and income has influenced some farmers to waive the risk of the overflowing rivers and run-off.

On the other hand, the long periods during which the rivers have stayed dry have equally pushed people to waive the risk of the rivers ever flooding. For decades, many of the river valleys have remained dry, giving farmers the idea that they are reclaiming good farming space.

Today, climate-induced challenges, including strong winds and irregular but heavy rains, have greatly affected the farming calendar and output. Plantain and yam farmers face serious challenges when strong winds erode the soil. Other crops like tubers are often washed away by flooding water. To worsen the situation, the current frequent rainfalls have caused long-dry streams to run again, taking the population by surprise. To this effect, we have witnessed frequent flooding of buildings and overflow on highways which disrupt traffic.

With all of the above, some communities are taking action to mitigate the dangers of the frequent floods and strong winds. Amongst other things, we have encouraged community efforts to reopen or create proper drainage patterns that will channel all the flooding water out of these communities without causing any threat to life or property. In addition, we continue our campaign by encouraging the local administration and council to review the settlement plan and develop good drainage systems.

It is said that the settlers around the Mount Cameroon Area migrated from the Congo Basin and thus are Bantus. As part of their activities, they find interest in fishing, agriculture and hunting. In that regard, from time immemorial these have been the primary activities of the occupants in the area. The more than 58,178 hectares of forest cover in this area positively influenced the settlement of the hunting and farming population.

However, increasing worries about the loss of forest cover and valuable biodiversity—that is, plants and animals alike—drew the attention of the Cameroon Government and other international NGOs and governments as a call for concern. In order to protect and conserve the huge biodiversity found in this geographical setup, the government declared the area a National Park, thereby controlling the hunting and farming activity. Later, the emergence of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List further restricted local residents from hunting (wildlife and honey), as well as from the timber exploitation and extensive farming that was negatively impacting the forest cover.

To help achieve the objectives of the Cameroon Government towards biodiversity conservation and forest cover protection, we are using community education programs to inform, sensitize and educate locals on the importance and need to conserve the biodiversity, and strategies for farming alongside the forest cover. For a more sustainable livelihood for locals and communities, the Mount Cameroon National Park Service—through the Program for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (PSMNR) South West—has identified over fifty local hunters who will be empowered on alternative green income generating activities such as piggery, beekeeping, yam/plantain cultivation and poultry. To ensure that the beneficiaries are well equipped, a series of training sessions are being held. Following the training, the trainees are given some supplies (including piglets, pig feed, and a drum each) and other necessary equipment.

All this is to ensure a more sustainable protein and income source for all the park communities (communities sharing direct boundaries with the park). It is believed that upon finalization of the project, pressure on natural resources and biodiversity and the communities’ interference in the park will be reshaped positively, with an increase in wildlife populations and regeneration of the carbon sink, habitat and vegetation.

Global Hand Cameroon was fortunate to be able to participate in an excellent training course recently on the topic of ecosystem restoration and poverty alleviation through Forest Gardening. Our report follows:

Forest Gardening:  A Resilient Farming System

Over the years, local farmers have had great success using traditional farming techniques. In the past, the majority of farmers around the Mount Cameroon area and beyond relied on the traditional farming calendar and natural ecosystem services and restoration opportunities. Farmers worried less about soil nutrient, structure and texture enhancements. Back then, the soil was just good enough to produce what the farmers needed, taking into account other environmental aspects that manipulated the ecosystem positively such as the moisture level, temperature, and forest cover, to name just a few.

With the recent climatic and other related environmental challenges that have negatively affected traditional farming knowledge and practice, local populations have had to resort to various solutions to their individual challenges. In addition, changing agricultural conditions have influenced the introduction of new crops such as maize, sweet potato and cassava, which require cutting down the forest carbon sink in order to provide the required sunlight to crops, and tilling of beds which destroys the soil. In one way or another, these practices alter the entire landscape and expose the earth surface to direct sunlight, resulting in high water loss which in turn can lead to long-term drought, as well as exposing soil microbial organisms to intense sunlight, reducing their effectiveness or even killing them altogether.

These climate change-induced challenges have added to the challenges which already exist, making it almost impossible for some farmers to provide food for their families, much less make a surplus that can fetch the family some money to support their basic needs. In response, farmers have resorted to adopting some modern farming techniques and methods even when they are aware of the negative consequences that may result from it.

As an example, local farmers have adopted the use of chemical fertilizers, chemical weeding, and the use of pesticides and fungicides (to fight new and resistant pests and crop diseases) to improve their output. All of these practices affect the soil negatively in the long run. Moreover, the acquisition of these materials can put farmers in debt, which at times has been paid with their harvest—and yes, the poverty cycle continues.

In order to avert this situation, we are looking back to the traditional farming system to sort out those techniques and methods that can be revised, and which if properly applied will not only impact the environment or ecosystem positively but will also provide a year-round nutritional food supply—while at the same time fetching a sustainable income for the family. It is in that light that Global Hand is applying the Forest Garden Technique in individual farms within targeted communities around Mount Cameroon. We intend to expand this project to other areas and households. This will help farmers maintain the soil, provide high-value nutritional meals from their garden, and make more income than before from their excess harvest and other marketable products such as fruits, fodder, timber, non-timber forest products (NTFP) and compost.

Global Hand Cameroon recently participated in a multi-day event to mobilize and facilitate the opening and rehabilitation of hiking trails and eco-lodges in Mt. Cameroon National Park.  This activity was organized by Mt. Cameroon National Park with the support of local organizations and individuals who have a good mastery of the area.

Infrastructure development in the park ranges from improving the network of both footpaths and motorable roads, to the construction of eco-lodges and campsites with tent platforms.  All of this is to facilitate the stay of visitors within the park.

To recognize and celebrate World Soils Day on 5 December 2019, Global Hand Cameroon visited pupils at a local school to discuss soil protection and conservation.  Mindful of the fact that the parents of most of the students are farmers, we took time to educate the children on the importance of soil and the role of human influence on soil pollution and its resulting consequences.

Local farmers currently face serious environmental challenges in the form of prolonged and severe wet/dry seasons, strong winds, erosion and pests.  Because of this, many have resorted to the use of chemical weeding, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.  These non-traditional methods of farming have had negative effects on the soil as well as producing crops that rot faster and, in some cases, have an inferior flavor.

Our discussion with the school children focused on ways in which traditional farming methods could be modified without the use of chemicals to protect our soils and increase production, thus improving our lives.

Mr. Ferdinand Ikome Wonganya
Mr. Ferdinand Ikome Wonganya

Following our community education program during the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October 2019, we talked to some local community members, including Mr. Ferdinand Ikome Wonganya.

Ferdinand is a good example of someone who has overcome poverty by finding new and better opportunities right in his own community.  He was once a hunter because his parents did not have the opportunity to go to school, likewise himself.  As a hunter at a very young age, he would spend three to four days in the bush without a kill.  Today, however, he is a tour guide with an income of at least XAF 30000 (45€ / $50) for every three-day trip on Mount Cameroon.  With this income, he has been able to send his children to school and provide for their basic needs and amenities.

In sum, Ferdinand testifies that life is much better now that he is working in the conservation field.  Not only does he make more income than before, but working as a guide is less strenuous than work as a hunter.  Ferdinand advises other hunters to work in sustainable natural resource fields such as ecotourism and modern beekeeping rather than hunting to eradicate poverty in their families and communities.  In this way, our children will have a better life.