The project will consider bamboo’s usefulness on a number of levels: as a tool for restoring degraded land to agricultural productivity while conserving biodiversity; as a source of income for rural communities; as a carbon sink; and as a means to raise the groundwater table across degraded landscapes in Cameroon.

The specific objectives of the project are:

• to improve the political engagement of the Cameroonian government with regards to the restoration of forest lands and sustainable land management;
• to evaluate the potential of land restoration in Cameroon using the native bamboo species Bambusa spp. and other indigenous non-timber forest product species such as Irvinga spp. and Ricinodendron heudelotii, and to promote the development of value chains for these species to support biodiversity conservation, sustainable livelihoods and carbon storage;
• to reinforce institutional capacity and financing mechanisms for large-scale land restoration of forest landscapes in project sites across Cameroon; and
• to improve knowledge of best practice in land restoration and follow-up evaluation among the project participants.

In 2020, project staff provided technical support to national policy documents about sustainable bamboo forestry management and forest landscape restoration, which were developed with the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife and the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development. The documents will help ensure the long-term sustainability of bamboo planting efforts in Cameroon.

The project has also helped establish eight new nurseries for bamboo and other non-timber forest plants, which in 2020 produced 37,000 plants for distribution. More than 100 hectares of land were secured for restoration in an effort involving 150 locals, most of whom received training on bamboo agroforestry.

For more information about the project, please contact:

• Fogoh John Muafor, Project Coordinator, fjmuafor [at] inbar [dot] int, Cameroon