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Expedition Diary - Congo Basin

Education for Nature

Judith Mashinya
© WWF

Conserving the Congo: Education for Nature

For almost 15 years, WWF’s Education for Nature (EFN) Program has been equipping conservation leaders with the training and practical experience to take on challenges in their home countries. Follow Judith Mashinya of WWF’s EFN Program as she travels through the Congo Basin to visit conservationists supported by WWF. Along the way, she travels across lagoons teeming with crocodiles and learns how to avoid a buffalo attack.

EFN alum Napoleon Chi leading a workshop on watershed management in Cameroon
© Napoleon Chi

Part 4: Napoleon's Story

That afternoon Napoleon discussed the progress that his NGO — the Watershed Task Group —had achieved. In 2006 he was invited to present a paper on the need for wetland policy in Cameroon at a conference of Cameroon’s caucus of parliamentarians for environmental protection. He also described how his group had recently confirmed the presence of a rare water bird that had never previously been observed in Cameroon—the Yellow-legged Gull (Larus cachinnans). Napoleon attributed the successes to the training that he received with EFN support. He also described how he had then trained others and that many of these people had subsequently joined other conservation organizations in important positions.

He also described how he was negotiating a partnership between his NGO and PECTEN Cameroon LLC an oil and gas exploration and production company. But he discussed with me his desire to be absolutely certain that the partnership was not a form of “greenwashing” for the company but rather a genuine effort to promote environmentally sustainable business practices and significantly improve local community livelihoods.