Malimba is a village within the Lower Sanaga Basin of the Douala ? Edea reserve. The major activities of this community include agriculture and fishing, but particularly the exploitation and processing of bivalves which is the mainstay of the local economy with over 80% of the population dependent on it which spans from November to May.
There is a very clearly gender distribution in the activity as men are mainly involved in the exploitation (fishing) from the river basin and the processing of the shells through burning and bagging latter evacuated to industrial towns of Douala, Yaoundé, Bafoussam to produce ceramics and animal feeds being very rich in calcium. Women are involved in the processing by cooking of the bivalves to extract the meat put in steaks ?soya?? bought locally or sold in nearby towns. Over 800 tonnes of bivalves are extracted annually from the area with annual revenue of more than 500 million francs CFA. The execution of this activity has effects both on the population and on the environment. The highly fragile and vulnerable mangrove forest is widely cut to smoke or burn bivalves thus threatening the biological production base due to disappearance of nursery zones.
This project proposes a two-step strategy to address the human and environmental effects. The first step is the organisation and capacity building of the Malimba Ocean CIG that is involved in bivalve exploitation and processing, to carry out improved exploitation of bivalves so as to ensure sustainability. The second step involves the use of energy saving technology as a strategy to reduce the over exploitation of wood as well as the health effects that stem from the execution of this activity.