The Support Service for Local Development Initiatives (SAILD) set up a riparian committee for participatory management of the DengDeng National Park (PNDD) from October 30 to November 04, 2024 in the villages of Têted’Eléphant, Liguim and Lom1 in East Cameroon.
The Participatory Riparian Management Committee (CRGP) of the Deng Deng National Park (PNDD) in the Lom-et-Djérem department, East region, is made up of three offices with thirteen members each. They have been officially installed by the Park’s curator in the three villages bordering the protected area, namely Tête d’Eléphant, Liguim and Lom1, with one office per village.
The main mission of the CRGP is to ensure equitable representation of local communities, indigenous peoples and target groups with a strategic interest in the management of the PNDD and its peripheral zones. It will help resolve certain problems facing the PNDD. In particular, the issue of riparian use rights, cultural practices and human/wildlife conflicts. It will also support ecotourism and the monitoring of the protected area.
Solving protected area problems
The members of the riparian committee were elected by the communities themselves. They had been selected by SAILD following a series of consultation meetings with the PNDD conservation department. Among them are village chiefs, external and internal elites, non-timber forest product (NTFP) collectors, medicinal plant collectors, fishermen, farmers, hunters and herders from these localities.
These members collaborate with the PNDD conservation service and other deconcentrated services of the administration in charge of forests and wildlife, in monitoring illegal activities around the protected area. They also play an active role in implementing participatory management activities within the PNDD, and are responsible for monitoring sustainable development projects in the park.
Law No. 2024/008 of July 24, 2024 and the various previous implementing decrees, which provide for the participation of local populations in the management of forest and wildlife resources, provide the framework for the creation of this riparian participatory management committee. The curator of the PNDD recognizes its existence and assures us that he will call on this structure for the management of the park for which he is responsible.
For the local population, satisfaction is high. “The CRGP will enable us to be in direct contact with the conservation service, with whom we can discuss the issues that divide us and find solutions without recourse to violence on either side”, confided a farmer from Lom 1.
This action by SAILD is part of the Optimization of Deng Deng National Park through Capacity Building of Local Communities on Agroecological Practices project, financed by IUCN through the BIOPAMA action fund.
- Sharon Maché
