PROJECT SUMMARY

PROJECT TITLE : Participatory Oku Community Forest management through forest regeneration and apiculture for livelihood improvement

Project funded by: PPI-FFEM of French IUCN committee

Project start date: August 2013-11-19

Project end date: October 2013

Duration of project: 15 months

This project funded by PPI-FFEM (French Global Fund For Environment-small scale project) of French IUCN committee in August 2013 seeks to promote participatory Oku Community forest management by engaging local people in activities that promote benefit sharing between people and the environment. CAMGEW identified apiculture and tree planting with the population as activities that could increase population revenue and at the same time increase the level of protection of the forest.

The project has as objectives:

• To promote apiculture in the Oku Community Forest
• To promote regeneration of the Oku Community Forest
• To sensitive communities about environmental issues in the Oku Community Forest

Project main activities are:

• To provide 6.000 native trees of Prunus africana to plant in the forest,
• To plant 6.000 Prunus africana trees in the Oku Community Forest, and follow-up the Prunus regeneration process,
• Take care of 7000 trees planted World Bank funding in 2012.
• To develop a management plan for Prunus africana to ensure the sustainability of the regeneration process and appropriation by stakeholders concerned by Prunus conservation issues,
• To develop an Oku Community Forest multi-stakeholders platform through 2 workshops,
• To provide training on bee farming,
• To construct, colonise and distribute 200 bee hives,
• To produce posters and brochures for environmental sensitisation and information sharing on the project, Produce project success story booklet at the end of project
• To develop Radio programmes in the Oku Community Radio to promote proper forest management, forest ecosystem benefit sharing, bee farming for forest management, forest law, best practices, alternative livelihood sources to the forest, protection of endangered species in the forest.

CAMGEW expects to train 120 persons on bee farming (apiculture). Oku Honey Cooperative Society, which is a CAMGEW partner, will do bee farming training and construct 200 bee hives for trained community members and groups. Ownership of bee hives by local people will encourage them to protect the forest from degradation (bushfires and deforestation) so as to ensure continuous benefit (income generation) from apiculture. 6.000 trees of Prunus africana (native forest tree and bee loving tree) will be planted in the forest by community members and institutions. This activity will involve all stakeholders. The Oku Community Radio and Oku Town Criers will be used for forest sensitisation and information. In the past executed project in 2012 funded by World Bank, 166 persons from 41 groups were trained on bee farming, 200 beehives were constructed and mounted for colonisation and 51 have been colonised and distributed to trained groups. 87 persons (various stakeholders) took part in planting 7000 Prunus africana trees in the Oku Community forest and more than 1000 children were sensitised on forest importance and protection. CAMGEW with funds from PPI-FFEM will take care of trees planted with World.