Projet FARE | Cashew nut sector & ecosystem restoration in Cameroon

Support the restoration of degraded areas around the Bénoué National Park and increase the resilience of ecosystems and riparian communities, by reforesting multipurpose trees and supporting the emergence of the cashew sector. .

Three main axes: the restoration of degraded areas by the reforestation of cashew orchards on the outskirts of Bénoué National Park, capacity building of producers in the cashew sector in terms of techniques and monitoring of plantations and support them in their structuring of collective sales. 

Restoration of ecosystems: participating in the restoration of degraded areas by the reforestation of cashew orchards on the outskirts of the Bénoué National Park is the central action of the project.  

Local economic development: structuring of producer groups in the functional cashew nut sector, storage and stores set up for collective sale.  

Awareness: train producers in the cashew sector on techniques for creating and maintaining nurseries, monitoring orchards and carrying out participatory discussions on the organization to be implemented to structure the players in this future sector.  

• • REFORESTATION OF PERIPHERAL ZONES OF THE PARK  

  Participating in the restoration of areas degraded by the reforestation of cashew orchards on the outskirts of Bénoué National Park is the central action of the project.

  The intervention will consist of collaborating with the farmers mobilized within the targeted communities to set up community and individual nurseries, as well as reforest the cashew seedlings thus produced, while ensuring the protection of nurseries and plants orchards.

  This will also involve concertation and awareness-rising actions. The beneficiaries will thus be equipped with the tools and knowledge that will in turn raise awareness among other members of their communities and future generations. The trees planted will promote the regeneration of natural corridors degraded until then by increasing human pressure (residents and migrants in search of cultivable land and housing) and consequently, the return of wildlife to these migration corridors which are supposed to ensure natural connectivity between the 3 national parks of the northern region.

  The project will thus have a positive impact in terms of biodiversity protection and increased capacity to adapt to the effects of climate change, but also in terms of mitigation through carbon storage enable by ecosystem regeneration.  

    

  • ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE OF COMMUNITIES 

  Raise public awareness of the importance of reforestation and the diversification of income sources.

  In order to promote the empowerment of communities, Planète Urgence and its partner wish to strengthen the capacities of producers in the cashew sector (in gestation) in terms of cultivation techniques and monitoring of plantations, and also subsequently to support their structuring.

  Producers will ultimately have improved living conditions thanks to the income generated by the production and sale of cashew nuts. This will help to diversify and secure their livelihoods, particularly during lean periods when, in this Sudano-Sahelian region with only two annual seasons (dry and wet), harvests of traditional local crops are scarce.

  In the longer term, the collaboration “Conservation of the Bénoué park – local associations – communities and villages – companies in the cashew sector” could generate the following impacts: reduction of anthropogenic pressure on the resources of the GNP (fauna and flora), creation of additional income for the communities, new processing activities for cashew tree products (juice made from cashew apples), etc.  

Partenaire de mise en œuvre : l’association locale CERAF-Nord