NEW PROJECT: Meet the women restoring Cameroon’s Tubah Upland Forest!
45,000 native and agroforestry trees within Gulf of Guinea biodiversity hotspot
500 women planting and developing skills and businesses
3,200 community members set to benefit
In Cameroon’s Bamenda Highlands, 500 Mbororo women are taking a leading role in restoring a threatened forest, protecting the land their communities depend on and building a stronger voice in decisions about its future.
We’re thrilled to be launching this new project with the Community Agriculture and Environmental Protection Association (CAEPA), a women-founded Cameroonian organisation with deep roots in the region.
The Tubah Upland Forest sits within the Gulf of Guinea’s biodiversity hotspot. Its rich wildlife includes the endangered Nigerian-Cameroon chimpanzee, the Highland stream frog and the striking crimson-and-blue Bannerman’s turaco. The forest also helps protect the water sources and soils that sustain surrounding communities.
But this landscape is under growing pressure. Forest loss, longer dry periods and changing rainfall are making water harder to access and livelihoods more precarious. In the Bamenda Highlands, these environmental challenges are compounded by the ongoing Anglophone Crisis, years of violence and displacement, and growing tensions around land and natural resources.
For Mbororo communities, who have faced discrimination and marginalisation, these pressures are particularly acute. Traditionally semi-nomadic, the Mbororo have strong cultural and livelihood ties to their livestock and the landscapes they move through. As climate change and land conflicts make their traditional way of life increasingly difficult, protecting the land and finding sustainable ways to support their families have become ever more pressing.
This is where our new project comes in.
Working alongside local, women-founded organisation, CAEPA, Mbororo women will help restore degraded forest, grow trees across surrounding farmland and protect vital water sources. Over the course of the project, 45,000 native and agroforestry trees will be planted.
But the work reaches beyond the trees themselves. Women will develop greener livelihood opportunities, build their advocacy skills and strengthen th
eir influence over decisions affecting their communities. Young people will gain practical knowledge of the biodiversity around them, while community-led initiatives will help identify threats to the forest and bring concerns to those who can act.
It’s a project that brings forest restoration, women's leadership and community livelihoods together, recognising that lasting change depends on the people who live alongside the forest having the resources and influence to protect it.
We’re proud to be working with CAEPA and the communities of the Bamenda Highlands to help make this possible.
45,000 trees. 500 women. 3,200 community beneficiaries. One landscape with so much worth protecting.
Help make more locally and women-led restoration possible by becoming a Guardian of Nature.
