UNESCO promotes sustainable tourism and community conservation in Cameroon

UNESCO is working with Cameroon's Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) to promote community-based sustainable tourism and conservation activities around UNESCO World Heritage sites in Cameroon.

Cameroon has two natural sites on the World Heritage List: the Dja Faunal Reserve, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987, and the Lobeke National Park which is part of the Sangha Transnational, a transboundary site shared with the Central African Republic and Congo, inscribed in 2012. Both protected areas are renowned for their exceptional biodiversity and contain some of the most important tropical rainforests in the Congo Basin. Since 2023, UNESCO has been providing micro-grants in these protected areas to strengthen local capacity and provide direct funding for locally designed projects that benefit both people and biodiversity.

© UNESCO / Conservation of World Heritage Sites - Norway-UNESCO Central Africa Project 

In 2023–2024, UNESCO awarded nine micro-grants totalling $40,000, which helped build the capacity of 160 people including local authorities and community members, the majority of whom were women. This initiative provided hands-on training and experiential learning in project and business management, arts and crafts, local production of medicinal soap, mapping tourism potential, and the transfer of knowledge from elders to the younger generations on the cultures, traditions and interaction of Indigenous Peoples and local communities with the environment, among others. This exchange is essential, as traditions, Indigenous and local knowledge play a key role in promoting practices that enhance environmental stewardship.

Building on this success, a second phase of the micro-grants programme was launched in December 2024 with a workshop to train participants in project management, and a total of 12 new local initiatives were selected for funding. These projects will support snail farming as an alternative source of protein, sustainable wild yam and honey harvesting by the Indigenous Baka people, and the organisation of traditional dances and ritual groups to promote community-based tourism, among others.

The micro-grant initiative is a valuable step towards ensuring that local communities benefit from the conservation of World Heritage sites. Community conservation, an approach to protecting biodiversity with Indigenous People and local communities, is a key priority for UNESCO. It helps adapt conservation to people’s needs, and often leads to better outcomes for wildlife. Community-based conservation can also help align the World Heritage Convention with the Global Biodiversity Framework, the global agenda endorsed by the United Nations to sustain a healthy planet for people and nature. 

The Government of Cameroon is actively promoting the inclusion of local communities in the management of the country’s protected areas. In addition, the Yaoundé Call for Action, adopted on 19 October 2022 during the regional celebration of the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention in Central Africa emphasized the need to capitalize on the contribution of World Heritage to conservation, socio-economic development, and the well-being of communities.

The micro-grants programme in Cameroon’s UNESCO World Heritage sites is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Government of Norway to the World Heritage Fund. With this support, UNESCO is implementing several programmes aimed at improving the conservation of African sites on the World Heritage List.