Eco-tourism: Cameroon’s Untapped Treasures In The Wild

Cameroon’s eco-tourism has picked up in recent years and local people are engaging more and more in the industry, yet the niche remains largely untapped. Along with the popular Mt. Cameroon Race of Hope that is an annual event in the South West Region come tourists now able to enjoy the most diversified nation in the central African sub-region, writes Elangwe Peter*.

Eco-tourism is an environmentally responsible travel to natural areas in order to enjoy and appreciate nature. It promotes conservation, has a low visitor impact and provides socio-economic benefits to the communities as well as the active involvement of the local population. Eco-tourism is distinguished by its emphasis on conservation, education, traveler responsibility and active community participation.

Specifically, eco-tourism has the following characteristics; conscientious low-impact visitor behavior, sensitivity towards the appreciation of local cultures and biodiversity, support for local conservation efforts, sustainable benefits to local communities, active local participation in decision making and education of both the traveler and the local population on environmentally sensitive issues. 

How does eco-tourism operate?

Eco-tourism activities are developed in local areas that still maintain some degree of originality – in culture, biodiversity, environment as well as other unique features that are peculiar to these areas. These include features like lakes, mountains, community forests, waterfalls, etc. Each potential has a set of accompanying activities that are harnessed for eco-tourism purposes and proposed to visitors as the main product of the projects.

We have for instance mountains where activities like hiking, bird watching, safari, adventure tours and mountain races can be developed to constitute the main product of eco-tourism. Community forests can be locations for bird watching, biodiversity observation and nature tours. Cultural displays, arts and crafts, museums, folklore, local cuisine, dressing, languages, heritage tours, tales, traditional wrestling constitute items that can be packaged around culture for eco-tourism purposes.

Apart from this, the local population being at the centre of the project benefits in two ways: consumption of the main product that goes into the project fund, which will be used for development and income earned directly from the provision of activities and services.

Considering that eco-tourism like tourism is a seasonal activity – with low and high seasons – most eco-tourism projects initiate and generate alternative activities to complement income generation especially during low peaks. The local population is trained on activities like bee keeping, poultry and pig farming. It can now take these as its daily activities while waiting for eventual arrival of the tourism season.

Advantages of Eco-tourism

Being a community-based activity, eco-tourism has been identified as a cure to underdevelopment as it has the following advantages;

Biodiversity conservation: The desire to savour life in its natural context has led to the protection and conservation of biodiversity in centres like parks, reserves, wildlife centres, zoos, and community forests.

Environmental protection: Because eco-tourism is responsible travel to areas that still maintain their originality and its accompanying fallouts, there has been greater awareness on the importance of preserving the environment in order to ensure the sustainability of its benefits.

Cultural preservation: One of the main objectives for which people travel to natural areas is to relish the cultures of the local population. By so doing, they pay for consuming such cultural products – dance groups, tips to individuals, artifacts for souvenirs – this encourages the local population to preserve their cultures to continue to reap these benefits.

Job creation and employment: Eco-tourism creates avenues for direct employment (people who work for the projects) and indirect jobs for other individuals who furnish other services to complement the tourists’ stay in the locality.

Other advantages include direct and indirect sources of income, infrastructural development, education and training and alternative sources of livelihood.

All these enhance standards of living and economic development of the areas concerned.

Cameroon’s Unique Touristic Spots

Unlike the products of the other industries, tourism products are unique; each touristic site is unique and peculiar for that destination. Cameroon has numerous such spots. The South West boasts of Mt. Cameroon (Mt. Fako), all historical edifices, Limbe dark sandy beaches, the Bimbia slave market, Limbe Botanical Garden, all the national parks, all the lakes and many more.

It is not all a bed of roses for eco-tourism. The industry faces a number of difficulties. The enclaved nature of our touristic sites has rendered accessibility difficult. The disfunctioning in connectivity of our transport system too is handicap; we have long and complicated procedures to acquire authorizations and licenses to exercise in the industry. Police harassments as well as other exploitative behaviours from other security men discourage eco-tourism.

There is a general lack of tourism culture within the individuals and the population. Inadequate training institutions to train personnel of the industry is another handicap worsened by insufficient infrastructural and social amenities to cater for the needs of tourists. Most touristic sites are undeveloped and can’t be consumed.

There are also external hindrances to Cameroon’s tourism such as political instability in other parts of the world that impeded the movement of people including tourists; competition from other well placed destinations; threats from insurgent terrorists groups like Boko Haram in the North that has even forced the region to be declared a no-go zone for tourists and other visitors. Then, the recent outbreak of Ebola in some countries has slowed down tourism activities around the world including Cameroon as flights to some countries have been suspended till further notice.

To overcome these difficulties, the authorities have to reduce and simplify procedures for authorizations and licenses for people who want to operate in the sector.

There is need for education, sensitization and creation of awareness to the local population, the security officers and other stakeholders on the importance of tourism activities as well as visitor management.

Provision of basic infrastructural and social amenities to facilitate life around touristic sites and the creation of more training and professional schools to groom professionals of the industry will be added advantage.

Lastly and most importantly, regional and international cooperation between nations will enhance enormously eco-tourism in Cameroon.

*Elangwe Peter is the Regional Delegate of Tourism and Leisure for the South West.