KORUP NATIONAL PARK
o an industrialist, commercial logger, or planter,
Cameroon's Korup Forest is only marginally interesting. Access
to the terrain is difficult, the area has high rainfall and low
sunshine. The land is poor in minerals, it has neither gold nor
oil, and the soil is acidic and not suitable for many crops.
But, precisely because the land is considered so
commercially poor, its remarkable natural wealth has been allowed to flourish. Located
in south-western Cameroon, Korup's rainforest has the largest
number of plant species in Africa, including a vine that has shown
potential as treatment for HIV infection.
In order to preserve one of Africa's greatest natural
treasures, WWF urged the Cameroon government to upgrade the status
of the Korup area from forest reserve to national park. In 1986,
Korup was decreed Cameroon's first, and currently only, rainforest
national park.
But declaring the area a national park was only the
first step. In order to protect the rainforest, WWF had to gain
the trust and cooperation of the Korup people. There are 29 villages
in the Korup area, six of them inside the park. For hundreds of
years, the Korup people have lived in or around the rainforest,
and a great part of their culture is entwined with it. For example,
all the fibres and dyes used in making the costumes of the Ekpe,
or Leopard
Spirit cult, come from the forest.
The fundamental idea behind the Korup National Park
project was to protect the biologically important forest through
its integration into the local socioeconomic fabric. Today,
it is one of WWF's best known and largest projects.
The project covers an area of 4,500sq km which includes
the Korup National Park, three forest reserves of NtaAli,
Rumpi Hills and Ejagham, and park buffer zones for agriculture,
watershed protection and hunting. The project has five subprogrammes
including management, park development, environmental education,
and training.
The Korup project has been jointly funded by WWFUK
and the Overseas Development Administration (ODA) of the British
Government. German Technical Assistance (GTZ) also contributes
to the funding and personnel complement under an ongoing technical
assistance agreement with the government of Cameroon. The project
was, moreover, supported until June 1993 by Wildlife Conservation
International (now Wildlife Conservation Society) to conduct
research in the Korup Forest. This responsibility was later assumed
by WWF.
The development of the actual park in terms of its
infrastructuredelimitation of boundaries, creation
of nature trails, building of surveillance posts and camp siteswas
achieved fairly easily. The infrastructure for the Support Zone
Integrated Development programmes such as bridges, wells, dispensaries,
schools, community halls and access roads came much later.
The biggest problem facing this WWF project is the
threat to wildlife from hunting activities not only by the villagers
but by hunters from all over the country. One of WWF's primary
goals has been to provide the villagers with alternative sources
of income so that the pressure to hunt and poach is eased.
To discourage poaching and strengthen the park's
links with the local communities, WWF recently employed local
men to act as park guards. Villagers are now farming fertile lands
outside the park. WWF has provided dozens of young men the opportunity
to learn new skills by offering fellowships for carpentry and
masonry at local technical colleges.
In order to promote centres of interest outside the
park, WWF solicited funding from the European Community to build
a road that would link Korup villages to the neighbouring town
of Mundemba. Some of the money was also to be used for resettlement
work. Additional assistance to build schools, bridges and dispensaries
throughout the area came from the US Department of Defense.
Poverty is a big problem. In order to improve local
living standards, WWF is setting up women's village cooperatives
and holding workshops on market gardening, handicrafts such as
soap-making, and teaching the people how to raise crops and livestock
successfully in the forest. Community farms have been established,
and tree nurseries set up to ease the pressure on the park's trees.
So far the results have been encouraging. Hunting
by villagers in the northern section of the park has declined,
and hunters from other areas have been asked to leave. Many villagers
have voluntarily surrendered their weapons, while others living
inside the park have accepted relocation to areas outside the
reserve. WWF continues to support the development of these villages.
One significant achievement of the Korup Project
is the discovery of the plant, Ancistrocladus korupensis (Ancistrocladaceae).
This plant (found in Korup and the adjacent area of the Oban
National Park in Nigeria) was one of the two plants identified
during a massive screening campaign by the US National Cancer
Institute as being active against the human HIV in vitro. The
National Cancer Institute has supplied research funding for this
antiAIDS plant. If it does prove medically useful, its cultivation
could provide a valuable source of income for local farmers as
well as contribute significantly to world health.
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