boumba_bek-description : Protected Areas in the Congo Basin: Failing both people and biodiversity?

Country: Cameroon

Type and IUCN Category: National Park, IUCN category: II

Size (hectares): 238,200 (Boumba-Bek National Park) and 309,362 (Nki National Park)

Date of creation: 17 October 2005. Boumba-Bek was designated as an ‘Essential Protection Zone’ in 1995.

CARPE landscape: Dja-Odzala-Minkebe (TRIDOM). Not covered by CARPE III.

Management plan: Management plans for the two adjacent parks were reportedly finalised and validated in a participatory process in 2012. The plan for Boumba-Bek was signed by the Prime Minister in 2012, while the plan for Nki has yet to be signed (de Marcken 2014: 19). The plans are not publicly available.

Local communities: According to recent estimates, approximately 35,000 people live in and around Boumba-Bek National Park and the adjacent Nki National Park. This includes around 18,000 Bantu farmers and around 9,000 traditionally nomadic Baka hunter-gatherers, with the rest of the population comprised mainly of migrants (Onambele 2014; RFUK 2016: 86). Maps of customary areas in and around the parks – created between 2004 and 2006 by communities, their civil society support organisations and conservation agencies – clearly illustrate how indigenous communities’ traditional lands are overlain by the park boundaries.

Administration: Officially, the parks are administered by the Cameroon Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) but park management activities are heavily influenced and funded by technical advisors from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), under their “Jengi Programme”. (Messe, 2008; WWF Global).

Biodiversity information: Boumba-Bek and Nki are mostly covered by lowland rainforest, and wildlife keystone species include forest elephants, sitatunga, chimpanzees, duikers, bushbucks, giant forest hogs, bush pigs, leopards, Nile crocodiles and bongos. The sites were also designated as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International (Noupa & Nkongmeneck 2008).

Neighbouring and overlapping extractive industries (Mapping for Rights):

South-eastern Cameroon is a hotspot for extractive activities.

Boumba-Bek National Park has two logging concessions bordering it:

(1) concession 10-018 on the northern border, managed by STBK since 1997; and
(2) concession 10-015 on the southern border, managed by CIBC since 2001.

Nki National Park is surrounded by four logging concessions:

(1-2) concessions 10-027 and 10-028 on the northern side;
(3) concession 10-032 on the western side; and
(4) concession 10-015 on the southern side, managed by CIBC since 2001

One mining company, HDS, operates within Boumba Bek, and four mining permits were granted within Nki:

(1) Venture capital Ekok 185;
(2) Camerican Mining Nki 206;
(3) CMC Dja; and
(4) Coast Investment Bek 256

Information available on funding:

(Please note that some of these grants may be covering several protected areas or landscapes.)

The parks have been funded by a number of financial institutions and programmes, including the World Bank (via the Global Environment Facility), WWF (Germany, Japan, Netherlands), CARPE-USAID (although the landscape is no longer part of the programme under CARPE Phase III), WWF’s African Elephant Programme; the European Union (ECOFAC), the African Development Bank’s PACEBCo, the Johnson & Johnson corporation, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, the United Nations Foundation, the Jane Goodall Institute and Conservation International. Specific grants and projects include:

Jengi Programme, 1998-present
Funders: WWF (Germany, Japan, Netherlands)
Objective: Participatory management of biological resources in southeast forests of Cameroon
Project area: Three national parks – Lobéké , Boumba-Bek, Nki – and the Ngoyla Mintom forest block
Funds: No available information.

Conservation of Transboundary Biodiversity in the Minkébé-Odzala-Dja Inter-zone in Gabon, Congo, and Cameroon Project (2004-2014)
Funders: Global Environment Facility (GEF) with parallel funding from EU/ECOFAC, WWF, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Conservation International and the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO).
Objective: Ensure long-term conservation of the TRIDOM protected area system through integrated, sustainable and participatory management in the interzone.
Project area: Minkébé-Odzala-Dja Inter-zone in Gabon, Congo, and Cameroon
Grant Manager: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Funds: $45,083,438 in total; including $10,463,338 from GEF and $13,228,000 from EU/ECOFAC as well as matched funding from WWF, WCS, CI and ITTO. Amounts allocated to operations in Nki and Boumba Bek unknown.

Forest and Environment Programme, 2016-2019
Funder: GIZ
Objective: The Forest and Environment Ministry, including their decentralized structures, shall exercise their mandate coordinated and made with other relevant actors.
Grant manager: COMIFAC, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Cameroonian Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF), and the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development (MINEPDED)
Funds: €22 000 000 across Cameroon (amount dedicated to each National Park unknown)

Partnership against Poaching and the Illegal Wildlife Trade Ivory and Rhino Horn) in Africa and Asia, 2017-2020
Funder: GIZ
Objective:Improving the fight against poaching (across sectors, borders and continents).
Grant manager: COMIFAC, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Implementation on the ground through Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network (TRAFFIC), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Global Nature Fund (GNF)
Funds: €8 750 000 across Africa and Asia(amount dedicated to each country/National Park unknown)