Under the project specific objective 1: To improve on the conservation status of elephants in Campo Ma?an National Park through inventories, rehabilitation of corridors; the following activities were successfully implemented:

* Carry out an inventory on the population of elephants at CMNP
The inventory of elephant at the CMNP was subject to a research dissertation to be defended publicly by a student Name Foyet Gabriel from the Forestry Department of the Faculty of Agronomy and Agricultural Sciences (FASA) of the University of Dschang as part of his Engineering work. Field work was conducted between March and April 2023, the aim was to collect necessary data which will enable a better understanding of the status of elephants around the CMNP, within clearings, corridors and to understand elephant activities and interactions around the western periphery of CMNP, this work enabled us to identify and mapped this interactions of the elephants in the area. The maps are available and will be shared as required.
It appears from this fieldwork and maps that elephants cross the Tem River from the island of Djipikar for FMU 09025, join community forest 09903039 where they have a corridor through the forest passing through the Akak, Bitandé Assok, Essokey, Nkoélon villages up to the Mvini village.
The results obtained during monitoring show 614 signs of elephant presence, i.e. 292 footprints with an observation frequency of 49.56%; 298 caves with an observation frequency of 48.40%; 24 feeding tracks with a frequency of 2.03% and 25 signs of human activity. In the field, we observed two fronts of anthropic pressure in FMU 09025, notably the CAMVERT agro-industry in block A of the FMU and two logging sales allocated to the SOFONY logging company, meaning that logging activities are underway towards the extreme south-west of the FMU.
Data concerning the status, abundance and frequency visits of elephants at the western periphery of the CMNP and the distribution of elephant populations within the CMNP are currently being analyzed and will be available shortly. Following these results, a wildlife monitoring plan in general, and for elephants in particular, will also be proposed for the western periphery and even on the other areas of the CMNP. This information is vital and will make a significant contribution to the decision-making process for the strategic development of the CMNP. It?s also important to make known that the level of destruction by elephants in the area is high and its becoming unbearable by the community and they feel abandoned to themselves by the state and they become very aggressive to strangers that come to the community, their cry to the government of Cameroon is that the Eco-guard should stop staying in offices but go down to field for more repression on the elephants to enable them remain inside the CMNP, not in communities.

* Conduct a survey of 200 stakeholders involved in the use and management of the park on modes of access, uses of wildlife in general and elephants in particular, threats and management techniques.

The surveys took place in 9 villages bordering the park: Nkoelon, Akak, Doum, Assok, Essokyé Nkoadjap, Mintom, Mabiogo and Nazaret. This activity was equally conducted by another student of FASA name Wang-wang Joseph, it will enable him obtain an engineering diploma on HWC. The main actors involved in the use of the park are MINFOF made up of the curator and his team, NGOs (WWF and AWF) which assist the conservation team in their mission, privates sectors which exploit the ecosystem and the biodiversity of the area and local population. A total of numbers of 205 people were surveyed, including 126 men and 79 women. These surveys enabled us to identify the trails used by local people to access the park for NTFPs collection, hunting and artisanal sawing. They also revealed that the activities most commonly practiced around the periphery of the Campo Ma?an National Park (CMNP) are hunting, artisanal sawing and fishing. Populations are less inclined to agricultural practice, as elephants are responsible for 65.22% of crop damage on the periphery of the PNCM. Apart from elephants, other animals that cause crop damage include monkeys, gorillas, rodents, birds, porcupines and even hedgehogs. This explains why 80% of the population's farmlands are considered as Human and Wildlife Conflict (HWC) zones. Practically all crops are attacked by elephants (cassava, maize, plantain, pistachio, cocoa, avocado, coconut, cocoyam and etc.). This discourages villagers from increasing their agricultural land, leading to a considerable reduction in sources of income and household livelihoods, with a consequent increase in food insecurity.
The surveys also revealed that small-scale commerce is virtually non-existent in the villages on the western outskirts of the CMNP, and people are turning Equatorial Guinea market at the boarder for their food supplies.
This situation calls for the implementation of urgent and specific measures to mitigate the impact of elephant roaming and limit conflicts as early mentioned above, the eco-guard have to re-enforce their repressive work on elephants in order to send them inside the protected area.
The conflict management methods generally used by people living on the periphery of the Park are noise, the use of fire and Citrus trees that been planted around the farms. However, surveys reveal that the noise method has its limits, insofar as farmers declare, and I quote, "The elephants of the past were more disciplined than those of today; when they listen to the noise, we have the impression that they come to see what it's all about".
As for conservation services, intimidation, shooting to drive back elephants is used as a HWC management measures. But as for the community, this needs to be frequent and permanent; it will definitely have an effect on the great mammals.

Objective 2: Strengthen the capacity of stakeholders on wildlife conservation measures and simple methods of managing conflicts between humans and elephants through awareness and training

* Sensitize and train 200 local residents of the PNCM on the regulatory provisions relating to the exercise of rights of use and access to resources, and the levels of protection for different wildlife species (class A, B and C), with particular emphasis on elephants.
As a prelude to this activity, two consultation meetings with other project stakeholders were organized, attended by several stakeholders including World Wildlife Funds(WWF), African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), the Ministry of Forestry (MINFOF) and administrative and traditional authorities (DO, mayor, village chiefs). This was to enable understand the project intervention strategies. Later run, training on regulatory provisions, wildlife conservation measures and simple methods for managing human-elephant conflicts was attended directly by 92 people, including 59 men, 26 women and 7 young people. Indirectly, it reached 360 people in 07 villages at the various outskirts of the park. Community capacity-building covered several aspects in 4 modules, including an introductory module on elephants and their habitat, a module on current wildlife protection laws and legislation (at international, regional and national levels), a module on regulatory instruments and institutions in charge of managing human-wildlife conflicts, and a module on measures used to manage human-wildlife conflicts. These techniques will enable local people to work harder to improve their living conditions while sustainably managing conflicts with elephants in their locality. All the participants were happy to have taken part in these two (02) day workshops per village and hope that CASuDeV will continue to accompany them in improving their livelihoods threatened by elephant roaming on the periphery of the CMNP.


Objective 3: To promote income-generating activities and appropriate conservation strategies as a human-elephant conflict management measures to improve the basic conditions of riparian communities.
Under this third objective of our project, the following activities were implemented:

* Train and accompany 60 local residents identified during the awareness campaign, whose criteria will be predefined, in modern beekeeping techniques
This activity was developed as a strategy to fight against poaching of elephants. It?s an alternative source of income to hunting. Following a series of awareness-raising meetings for young men and women from the villages of Nkoadjap, Mintom-centre and Akak, the three villages expressed their desire to experiment with beekeeping as a new opportunity to mitigate human-elephant conflicts and improve their livelihoods, especially as it is profitable. The training sessions undertaking focused on the importance of beekeeping and bees, the difference between traditional, modern and modernized beekeeping, the role of bees in pollinating plants and species diversification, a presentation of the inhabitants of the hive and their roles, and a presentation of beekeeping equipment and their roles. The training sessions were very interactive and participants were so much interested to know more about bees and honey production.

*Set up a community apiary (60 hives) for the production of honey and its by-products for the benefit of the 60 local residents as an alternative to hunting.
After this theoretical stage, practical exercises followed in which participants were shown how to melt wax to bait a beehive, as well as the criteria to be respected in the beehive installation process, respecting the direction of sunshine and the position of the hive, be it under the sun or under the tree. A beehive was then installed in each village as demonstrative example. The remaining was now to be installed by the communities themselves. The communities were provided with 20 hives each, i.e. 60 hives in the tree villages, and took on the responsibility of continuing with the installation of other hives on the different plots previously identified which could be all together 1ha just for apiculture. Continuous follow up will be made to ensure that all these hives are installed and colonized. The next session of the training will be for harvesting and before that there will be constant monitoring.

* Train local residents on agroforestry techniques
40 beneficiaries made up of 15 women and 25 men from the villages of Nkoadjap and Mintom-centre received capacity-building in agroforestry techniques and on nursery seedling production. The training focused on the definition of agroforestry, a graphic presentation of the different components of agroforestry systems and their typologies. Participants learned about the main agroforestry systems and their sub-systems. The notion of agroforestry species was also addressed, and the different categories of agroforestry species were presented to the communities, including examples of bio-fertilizing species, fruit species, vegetable species, condiment species, forage species, medicinal species and edible caterpillar species. Following the community capacity-building session, two plots were selected in each village for the nursery development, in the presence of the village chief, members of the previously identified management committee and other trained participants. In Mintom-centre, a 100m2 plot belonging to the chiefdom was selected for the nursery. In Nkoadjap, a 200m2 plot also belonging to the chiefdom was selected for the nursery. Following this, the agroforestry tree species to be reproduced in the nursery for land restoration, diversification of income sources and elephant control were chosen in a participatory manner with all participants. Three criteria were used to select the species:
- Species that contribute to the fight against human-elephant conflict
- Species that contribute to improving people's standard of living
- Species that contribute to food security.
Based on these criteria, the people of Mintom-centre village chose 05 species, including Citrus lemon, Citrus sinensis (orange), Persea americana (avocado), Dacryodesedulis (safoutier) and Annonamuricata (soursop). In Nkoadjap, in addition to the above-mentioned species, people also requested the production of Cola Acuminata (colatier), Gnetum africanum (Okok) and Garcinia cola (Bitter cola) plants.
The activity ended with the official installation of pilot committees to help monitor and test elephant control techniques in the three project villages.

* Set up nursery for agroforestry tree planting

After selecting various species for agroforestry development, the team organized a mission to carry out practical exercise with the community and two nurseries were set with the following trees species: Citrus lemon, Citrus sinensis and Persea americana. A total of 750 lemon seeds, 650 orange seeds and 1650 avocado pits were put in the two nursery sites. 3,000 nursery bags were also handed out to the monitoring committees to fill it. The nursery was set up by the project beneficiaries. Men cleared the site, while the women prepared the substrate and filled the bags. All the seeds were potted and watered, and monthly monitoring will be carried out to ensure that the plants are growing well. These plants will be ready for planting in March 2024, and the harvest and sale of the fruit after the third year of growth will enable some families to buy basic necessities such as oil, salt, fish, meat, etc. For other families, this income will be used to pay school fees and money for the children's snacks at school, according to the comments of some beneficiaries such as Madame ZOULA Ruth. These products will also be used to feed the families of the beneficiaries.

* Train women on production and transformation of cassava
As part of this activity, a mission to restructure the existing cooperative in Mintom-centre was organized and attended by 16 people, including 15 women and 1 man. It should be noted that it was planned to create a common initiative group for women, but with discussion with the delegate of agriculture, we realized that they are many non-legalized group in their wallet, so we decided to restructure and fill the gaps of the existing women cooperative. So a capacity-building session was organized for the women of Mintom to value the place of rural women in development and in provision of basic need to the family and on the benefits of associative life, with emphasis on motivating members to join a group so that together they can speak favorably for their promotion, followed by a presentation on the process of setting up a cooperative. The capacity building workshop brought about the notions of general assembly and constitutive and extraordinary general assembly, by-laws and internal regulations, the rights and obligations of members, the importance of minutes and the creation of the cooperative's file for official legalization. This was followed by an overview of the cassava production and processing cooperative set up by APEV. Among the activities carried out by the aforementioned NGO, we have: the member who meets in the form of an association (tontine) "tenons-nous la main" (let's hold hands), the list of group members which is available, the holding of a constitutive general assembly and the drafting of the minutes of this assembly, the election and installation of board members, the identification of a community farms, the opening of the farms and the purchase of products for cassava processing. And lastly the provision of a cassava processing machine for the MINTOM community. The above are the results obtained with the APEV. So after a consultative with the subdivision delegate, we decide upon to continue with this cooperative to fill out the gaps lefts by APEV which were among other: the official registration of the cooperative, the putting together of the social capital by committed members, the creation of the group bank account and the opening of the remaining part of the forest. So after this stage, the project team moved on to planning future activities in agreement with the local people. These activities include drafting the by-laws and rules of procedure, defining the social share of members, which has been set at USD 16.6 by the communities, creating a group bank account, assembling the file for legalization by the Reginal delegation agriculture of Southern Region (Ebolowa), clearing and planting the farm with Cassava cuttings (planned for June), setting fire to the piles of foliage, branches and twigs (burning the plot) in July 2023, ploughing the field to plant the cassava cuttings and finally maintaining the farm until harvest. The women of Mintom have undertaken to set up a Njangi to collect each member's share of USD 16.6within 2 to 3 months as from the time this meeting was organized in June.

Activity on Capacity building
The project recruited two above mentioned engineering students from the Faculty of Agronomy and Agricultural Science at the University of Dschang to carry out 06-month internships on 02 different topics. One is working on the current situation and prospects for mitigating human-elephant conflicts in the western periphery of Campo-Ma'an National Park (Wang-Yang Maaga) and the other on monitoring elephant population dynamics in the western periphery of Campo-Ma'an National Park in southern Cameroon (Foyet Tazing Gabriel). They have already ended field work, they are now preparing they thesis document and will publicly defend in July 2023.
Another session on capacity building was the 5 days online workshop organized by our partner to build our capacity on technical and financial reporting, this capacity has enabled us develop this present report. 03 members of CaSuDev, were trained on technical and financial report using distance education approach.