DJOUM, Cameroon — “This right there used to be hell.” It’s early February 2019, deep in the tropical rainforest in southeastern Cameroon, the day after a night of heavy downpour.…
Africa’s Congo Basin is home to the second-largest rainforest on the planet. But according to a new study, this may soon not be the case. It finds that at current…
Nearly 70 years ago, Edwin Ujor of the Nigerian Forestry Service collected a specimen of a tree from a forest high up in the Bamenda highlands in Cameroon. The specimen…
Southern Cameroon is home to some of the most biodiverse areas of African rainforest. It’s also home to a massive area of deforestation destined for rubber cultivation – right across…
An industrial rubber plantation is currently developing land right on the edge of Cameroon’s Dja Faunal Reserve. And it's getting closer, according to an analysis of satellite data released by…
A British government office has prosecuted a wood importer certified by the Forest Stewardship Council after it was found to have failed to ensure the legality of a shipment of…
Hornbills, vultures and eagles are being hunted for bushmeat in Cameroon in much greater numbers than previously thought, a new study has found. Previous research has shown that relatively few…
Researchers have identified a genetic analysis technique that pinpoints the harvest location of trees—a breakthrough that could help officials detect illegally traded timber. The multi-national research team tested the potential…
A warming climate and decreased humidity is threatening yields of plantains, a food staple that rural families in Cameroon and elsewhere in Central Africa bank on to pay for their…
A small but important group of Endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimps – just one of four left in Cameroon – have gone missing. Conservationists blame a new road.
The Paris Agreement, reached at COP21 in December 2015, aims to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)…
At first glance Cameroon's western regions seem lush, but a closer look shows a land degraded by overgrazing, unsustainable cropping practices, deforestation of vegetation for firewood, and uncontrolled bush fires.…
YAOUNDE, CAMEROON — Two male chimps, Avi and Max, take turns inside an electric-fenced compound where eight Central chimpanzees are housed at the Mefou Primate Sanctuary not far from Cameroon’s…
Ekwoge Abwe’s fight drags on. As the manager of the Ebo Forest Research Centre (EFRP), he’s been part of a long running battle to set-up a national park conserving Cameroon’s…
Amphibians around the world are in a state of crisis. Over 40 percent are threatened with extinction. Chytrid fungus, a disease fatal to most amphibians, is decimating populations already threatened…
It's time to celebrate World Pangolin Day -- again. Today, February 18, is dedicated to the armor-clad mammals that resemble giant pine cones. Some might know them as scaly anteaters that eat, well…
Most of the attention around palm oil production has focused on where the crop has the largest footprint: Southeast Asia. Yet oil palm plantations are rapidly mushrooming throughout the tropics, from…
The Lebialem Highlands, located in Cameroon’s southwest, is a global biodiversity hotspot, a place long protected from development by its ruggedness and small human populations, though that is no longer…
A study published in the journal Science Advances this month found that, between 2000 and 2013, the global area of intact forest landscape declined by 7.2 percent, a reduction of…
Great apes need intact, safe habitat to thrive. But deforestation and hunting have imperiled that safety, with four out of six species now Critically Endangered, including Eastern and Western gorillas,…
Nests, footprints and dung have been leading primatologists to new gorilla populations in the Congo Basin nation of Cameroon for over a decade. In 2002, researchers discovered nearly 100 Western…
Ghaa’s life changed with the sound of a gunshot. The bullet likely killed his mother and shrapnel from the exploding shell struck Ghaa on the side of the head; a…
Massive forest fires in the Congo and Amazon, surging deforestation in Brazil, and tentative steps toward reform in Indonesia and Myanmar: there were no shortage of major happenings in tropical…
Cables obtained by the non-profit Oakland Institute through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that U.S. government officials pushed the Central African nation of Cameroon to approve a deeply…
UK authorities have taken action against 14 companies sourcing timber from Cameroon linked to illegal logging. Six companies received a notice of remedial action, seven received a letter of warning,…
Michelin Group, one of the world's three largest tire companies, has just adopted a zero deforestation policy for its rubber sourcing. The move is significant because rubber is a major…
Other stories in Mongabay's Conservation, Divided series: Part 1: Has big conservation gone astray? Part 2: How big donors and corporations shape conservation goals Part 3: Conservation today, the old-fashioned…
The development of an oil palm plantation, which was thought to have been pretty much abandoned by the American company that ran it, has resumed in the Southwest Region of…
This is the fourth in a four-part series on palm oil in Cameroon. Read the first, second and third parts for more discussion on the topic. There’s an upwelling of interest in…
A new report by the Rainforest Foundation UK found that protections for Africa’s tropical forests are failing to actually protect biodiversity and forest communities. In recent years, hundreds of millions…
