Summary of case study presented at the CAURWA/FPP conference:
Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas in Africa: From Principles to Practice
held in Kigali, Rwanda, September 2001

by Joseph Claude Owono
Planet Survey
July 2001


This case study reviews research which sought to examine the degree to which Bagyeli Pygmies were involved in the Development and Management Plan of the Campo Ma'an National Park in Southwest Cameroon. The Campo Reserve was originally created in 1932, and in 1999 the Campo Ma'an GEF/Biodiversity project was established to conserve and manage the biodiversity of Camp Ma'an. This initiative formed part of the environmental compensation for the building of the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline, which crosses other Bagyeli lands not far to the north. Before the imposition of this project, Bagyeli were able to gain access to the Campo area and its resources, all which fell within the lands that they have traditionally occupied, proven by the network of paths within the park and evidence of structures and plantations at Dipikar Island, now guarded by the Cameroon Army. When the project started, and even though no management plan had yet been elaborated, it imposed new rules that forbade all access to the reserve, and this has adversely impacted upon Bagyeli Pygmies who live in the area. No preliminary studies were carried out to help direct the management plan for the park, and the local communities were not consulted about the plans, even by SNV, the Dutch Development Agency, whose role is to inform the resident populations about the project and to implement ecodevelopment activities. One of the project's own studies, which is concerned with community hunting even though it neglects to identify the specific Bagyeli situation, acknowledges that local communities, who have received no compensation, have been active in hunting for subsistence within the nominated reserve area. This conservation project has led to the exacerbation of conflicts between Bagyeli and hunting guards, and with other ethnic groups, particularly the Bebilis, who hunt commercially in the area. The case study highlights the lack of participation by Bagyelis in the establishment and management of the reserve, and the lack of options open to them to secure rights to adequate hunting areas in other parts of the zone. Their role in conserving the area before the project started has not been recognised, while they are being forced to adapt their culture towards a more sedentarised model. The study concludes by underlining the need for conservation projects to secure the cooperation of local people if they are too succeed; in the Campo case this means that they need to reconcile the need for hunting within the reserve by Bagyeli with the project's conservation objectives.