Bio-diversity

The Adamaoua savannah plateau forests provide the vast majority of honey consumed in Cameroon and exported to neighbouring countries but generally the economic benefit is felt more by the middle men than by the producers. Adamaoua s environment is at risk of desertification and its forest resources are being exploited unsustainably. Convinced of the need to mitigate these problems, Guiding Hope, an enterprise created in 2007, has introduced a fair trade, organic and transformational marketing approach for honey and beeswax: training and mobilising beekeepers, and creating the community institution of locally managed honey collection centres, responsible for quality, organic traceability and support to fellow beekeepers. Whilst capable of providing a higher-value and guaranteed market for honey from 755 households of beekeepers at its outset, Guiding Hope now requires support not only to promote increased sustainable honey production, stemming from responsible use and community based regeneration and management of natural resources, but also to raise environmental awareness and set in place concrete management actions. These 2 activities will be based around our new collection centres where plant nurseries will be established and beekeepers will be taught and supported to plant out and protect new trees. The results will be multiplied to the whole community; young and old, male and female, beekeeper, cattle herder or farmer, literate or not, will be incorporated in environmental sensitisation, using an innovative and entertaining visual medium. Community members will be trained as village environmental animators to spread the message, on wheels, to other villages. Finally a special focus will be made on women, currently blamed by their husbands for destroying trees to bring home firewood. They will be given economic incentives to protect and regenerate trees through training in processing of Non Timber Forest Products: primarily oil from the kofia tree, also a favourite tree for bees

Cameroon