The Dja Biosphere Reserve (DBR), a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Cameroon’s largest Reserve, is divided into a 525,000-ha Wildlife Reserve (most of which is under strict protection), home to significant populations of gorillas, chimpanzees and elephants, and a 950,000-ha peripheral zone, in the northern part of which the project operates. The DBR faces various pressures, both of local origin (poaching, slash-and-burn agriculture) and external origin, particularly linked to the conversion of forest into oil palm and cocoa plantations. Cocoa currently accounts for 50% of household income in the DBR’s peripheral zone. While conservation of the DBR is supported by donors and activities are being implemented by major international NGOs, economic support for communities on the reserve’s periphery has clearly been neglected by conservation stakeholders, apart from support for community forests, which are now reaching their limits in terms of local development. In order to move beyond a situation in which the interests of land users and managers conflict, it is necessary to support sustainable economic development on the periphery of the Protected Area.
The project’s objectives are to prevent deforestation driven by cocoa production while providing producers with a source of income, to support cocoa producers in organising themselves for product distribution, and to promote environmental education on great apes in primary schools on the DBR’s northern periphery.
The project’s direct beneficiaries are around 375 people living in the project area (cocoa farmers, pupils, teachers). Indirect beneficiaries are the Messamena Town Council and the DBR’s Conservation services.
