Implementing Agency:
Department For International Development (PAND)

Managing Institute:
Birdlife International

Contractor:
BirdLife International

Ministry of the Environment and Forestry (MINEF)

Project Code: 012-680-002	Start Date: 01/04/1988	End Date: 31/03/1996
Commitment: £359,433	Status: Completed	Type of Funding: Bilateral - JFS

Project Background:
The ICBP Kilum Mountain Forest Project (KMFP) was started in 1988 with the aim of conserving the largest and most important remnant of montane forest in the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon's north-west province. These forests support a unique and gobally threatened flora and fauna including two endemic bird species. The conservation of the forests is crucial to watershed protection for over 100,000 people who farm the slopes around the mountain below the forest, and obtain from the forest fuelwood, building and thatching materials, medicines, honey and other forest products.

The conservation of montaine forest in Cameroon is essential for conservation of biodiversity; these montane forests constitute one of the forty 'endemic bird areas' (EBAs) in Africa revealed by ICBP (now Birdlife) analysis ('Putting biodiversity on the map: priority areas for global conservation', ICBP 1992), and represent the last hope for survival of several species unique to the ecosystem, including two birds, Bannerman's Tauraco, Tauraco Bannermanni and Banded Wattle-Eye, Platysteira Laticincta. A feature of the endemic bird area analysis is that areas revealed by it as being of importance for bird conservation are in most cases equally important for the conservation of other life forms, and the Kilum forests also contain endemic and threatened species from several other groups.

The project rationale is based on assisting local people to improve techniques and yields from farming on slopes outside the forest, while simultaneously promoting sustainable uses for forest products (carving wood, honey, medicines, paper from tree bark) and strengthening the sense of community ownership for, and understanding of, the multiple values of an intact forest cover on higher slopes of the mountain above the farmland.

The project is working to ensure the empowerment of local people, both in terms of the management of natural resources generally within the region and specificaly with respect to the community management of the proposed Kilum-Ijim Forest Reserve.

All activities of the project are run by and for local people, with expatriate technical input as required. Many of the project beneficiaries are women, who are responsible for most subsistence farming in the Kilum area.

Project Objectives:
The overall objective is to ensure the sustainable management of natural resources in the area of Mont Kilum (Oku), including the Ijim ridge, in north-west province, Cameroon, and the conservation of the remaining montane forest ecosystem on the slopes of the mountain.

Intended Outputs:
A self-sustaining, regional soil conservation and agroforestry programme for the Kilum area established, operated through village based farmers groups and co-ordinated by either the regional development authority (MIDENO) or the Ministry of Agriculture. It is expected that this structure will be established and will operate very effectively within the period of the proposal but may need continued financial input from external sources to cover operating costs, after the end of the 5-year project term.

Improved livestock management and husbandry in the Kilum area, in order to improve the well-being, profits and land-use rights of graziers and to reduce or eliminate the degradation of natural forest currently caused by livestock. The Kilum Shepherds Co-operative Union will operate the programme which, it is anticipated, will become self-supporting and self-financing during the project period.

The Kilum Project Advisory Committee, the Department of Forestry of the Ministry of Agriculure and the appropriate committee in the Ijim area assisted in the preparation of integrated management plans for the proposed Kilum-Ijim Forest Reserve which will ideally be a joint reseve encompassing both Kilum and Ikim forests, managed by a joint (community based) committee composed of representatives from both Kilum and Ijim areas. Assistance to this committee in lobbying for the designaton of the reserve as a protected area; provision of technical assistance as needed to ensure the establishment of the appropriate management structure and effective implementation of the management plan.

Ijim Mountain Forest Project achieving (1992) comparable improvements in natural resource management to those achieved to date (1992) by the Kilum Mountain Forest project, including appropriate agroforesty and agricultural programmes, demarcation of the proposed reserve boundary and replanting of degraded forest areas, a widespread increase in awareness of the need for the sense of community responsibility for protection of the Ijim forests.

Development of proposals and assistance with fund-raising for appropriate wider rural development (eg agiculture, agroforestry), programmes in the Ijim area, ensurng that such programmes are established within appropriate community and/or regional government structures such that they become self-supporting without the need for continued expatriate co-ordination.

All important project elements fully integrated into local (community or government) structures or other programmes (eg regional agricultural initiatives or the national education programme of WWF in Cameroon) to ensure that they continue in the long-term.