WWF is one of the world’s largest conservation organizations. It was conceived on the 29th April 1961. Its first office opened in September 1961 in the Swiss town of Morges. The central secretariat for the network – called WWF International – is now located in Gland, Switzerland.
Evaluation of Human – Wildlife interactions with focus on HumanElephant conflicts, in WWF Cameroon Supported landscapes: Case of the West Coast Cluster of Mount Cameroon National Park, South West region
Title Evaluation of Human – Wildlife interactions with focus on Human-Elephant conflicts, in WWF CCPO Supported landscapes in Cameroon Supported Programme/Project (Pilot) Program for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources in the South West Region- PSMNR-SW.
Site West Coast Cluster of Mount Cameroon National Park, South West region, Cameroon Proposed length of study 60 Man days Proposed start of Study January 2022
1. Background and Justification About WWF Cameroon Country Program
WWF has been operating in Central Africa for more than 25 years. Its Regional Office for Africa-Yaoundé Hub (ROA-Yaoundé), Cameroon, oversees offices and projects in Cameroon, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, and the Republic of Congo. WWF was the main actor in the organization of the 1999 Central Africa Heads of State summit on Biodiversity in Yaoundé. WWF-Cameroon receives funding from various WWF offices in its Network and operates under the financial administration of WWF-International. WWF Cameroon, in partnership with the Ministry of Forests and Wildlife (MINFOF), operates in four landscapes in the country, namely the JENGI TNS, JENGI TRIDOM, Campo Ma’an (East and South Regions); and the Coastal Region in the South West and Littoral Regions. WWF Cameroon is currently engaging expert services to support its Landscape Restoration Initiatives in the Northern Savanah ecosystem. Although this current work package focuses on the West Coast region of the Coastal Forests (South West Region) of Cameroon, Human – Wildlife conflicts occur in all of WWF Cameroon supported landscapes. On the 29th of September 2021 WWF CCPO signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Forests and Wildlife relating to WWF’s Technical and Financial Support to the management of protected areas and landscapes in the South West Region of the Republic of Cameroon, amongst which is managing human-wildlife interactions and conflicts. • Incidents of Human-Wildlife and human-elephant encounters and conflicts in the Coastal Forests Program
The Mount Cameroon National Park is home to the forest elephant Loxodonta cyclotis africana. To facilitate collaborative management, the park was carved out into four clusters. All the clusters, especially two – Bomboko & West coast, have since 2018, been subject to persist Elephant – Human conflicts characterized by elephant attacks and destruction of crops.
Human-elephant conflict, and particularly crop raiding, has thus been a persistent conservation issue in the West Coast (comprising 7 villages) and the Bomboko (13 villages) clusters of the Mount Cameroon National Park – a phenomenon that appears to be on the increase during the last four years. These two clusters demonstrate elephant range overlaps with human settlement, crop cultivation and activities of the agro industrial giant the Cameroon Development Cooperation-the CDC.
Numerous surveys and assessment of damages have been recorded by MINFOF and certain actions taken to control them. Recently over the last nine months, the damages seemed to have escalated posing a threat to the lives of villagers, as elephants could be seen behind houses in villages. In 2021, the worst occurred and an Eco-guard was killed by an Elephant in the West Coast cluster.
A number of scare measures have been attempted, including employing fireworks, use of dummies by community members, and the establishment of two kilometer pepper belts in some areas. Preliminary data collection and observations following these measures, suggest that the pepper fencing has had some limited, though short-lived effect, keeping the beasts away. There is however, ample evidence from countries like India that, a combination of approaches and strategies is likely to be most effective at managing human – wildlife conflicts.
• WWF Cameroon mandates to deal with Human – Wildlife conflicts
With increasing conflicts in multiple landscapes supported by WWF Cameroon (Coastal forests – SWR, Lobeke area – East Region, etc.), the destructive scale and impact on communities is raising the real possibilities of community uprisings with potential for social disorder, in addition to the direct threats to elephants. The death of the Eco-guard was one such trigger, and prompted the Regional Delegation (RD) of the South West Region to address a formal request to WWF Cameroon to help address the problem. Similar needs have been identified and incorporated in respective work plans, in supported landscapes like JENGI TNS, JENGI TRIDOM and Campo Ma’an. Therefore, the implementation and lessons from this request by the South West delegation will have wideranging application, but will first deliver short-term results, then long-term ones (including early warning systems) to manage these human – wildlife encounters, and conflicts. The outcome of the work is expected to promote better overall co-existence between human communities and wild life, and with elephants in particular.
2. Essence, Goals, Technical requirements and Objectives
The landmark publication , A Future for All: The Need for Human-Wildlife Coexistence, captures the essence of managing Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC) as follows:
Essence
“Around the world, human-wildlife conflict (HWC) challenges people and wildlife, leading to a decrease in people’s tolerance for conservation efforts; and contributing to multiple factors that drive species to extinction. HWC is a significant threat to conservation, livelihoods, and myriad other concerns, and should be addressed at a scale equal to its importance. By allocating adequate resources and forming wide-ranging partnerships, we can move towards long-term coexistence that benefits both people and wildlife”.
WWF Cameroon is in the third year of implementing its current strategic plan that runs from 2018 to 2023. During the past two years, much has changed within WWF’s network and at the country level necessitating a review of the strategic plan. The changes include the coming into force of 2030 Africa Vision, 2030 Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) Africa Initiative, six conservation practices and three drivers. Climate change, social safeguards and human rights have today also taken center stage at all levels. In addition to wildlife and forests, WWF Cameroon has now embraced people-centred (human wellbeing) conservation and two new practices namely: food/agriculture and climate and energy supported by the governance and finance drivers, with a strong focus on Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) for a more inclusive conservation.
In WWF Cameeoon supported landscapes issues involving perceptions of HWC cuts across an important chunk of disciplines and practices at the heart of WWF’s mandate in Cameroon. For instance, HWC involves the interaction of humans and wildlife within ecological contexts often characterized by forests under different definitions. Furthermore, food systems often developed from previously forested lands frequently fall victim to human – wildlife conflicts.
In the west-coast of the Mount Cameroon National Park, like in the eastern forest zones of Lobeke, Boumba-Bek and Nki eastern Cameroon, wildlife preys primarily on crops planted by small holder farmers on the peripheries of protected areas. Resolving such HWC must also mean strengthening and adapting food production systems to changing land use and environmental factors.
It remains unclear how climate change may be impacting wildlife migratory behavior. However, if climate change can impact human food systems, then it can impact wild food systems as well, given that, polllination systems are connected.
As humans adapt to direct social, economic and political dynamics; and to indirect changes in production systems, land use practices are impacted, modified and encroachment into wild areas becomes more likely. As this happens so too do chances and opportunity for human – wildlife encounters and conflicts increase.
On the other hand, issues of good governance and finance may involve effective application of existing policies; laws, effective practices, communication, accountability and shared responsibility for environmental management, including mitigating/preventing damage from conflict. Good governance and financial instruments are therefore necessary against negative aspects and effects of HWC. Support to wildlife law enforcement therefore, remains an important domain of WWF Cameroon’s work and an important discipline through which to better understand and manage HWC.
Support to Civil Society is another important part of WWF Cameroon’s work in the coastal forests and their increasing role in inclusive biodiversity conservation, including in facilitating and hosting tools for managing HWC, will be highlighted through this work.
Finally, the primary victims of HWC are IPLCs. Given their geography and dependency on natural resources, IPLCs are often at the frontline of HWC. Ensuring that these critical constituency and link in the conservation chain remain positively engaged, requires that their encounters and coexistence with wildlife does not result in losses to their lives and livelihoods, but to mutual benefits for them and for nature. The orientation of the current WWF Cameroon strategy is firmly plugged into the nexus of human wildlife encounters, co-existence and conflict. Finding long-term solutions to the phenomenon of HWC is now a game-changer for WWF Cameroon.
Goal of the Consultancy
The goal of this consultancy as captured in its TORs, is to; provide specific guidelines for the longterm and dynamic management of human-wildlife encounters, conflicts and co-existence in the west coast of the coastal forests program (CFP) in the South West Region of Cameroon and generate lessons for other programs. The CFP also has the specificities of hosting WWF Cameroon’s biggest Civil Society support program facilitating the Management of four Protected Areas: Korup, Banyang Mbo, Bakossi and Mount Cameroon.
The successful implementation of this consultancy must consider the full context of policy, agroindustry, forests, protected areas and civil society interactions in this geopgrahical local. Of course, considering the ongong socio-political crisis, this part of the tasks will be restricted to specific areas of the West Coast and will be implemented under strict respect of directives and other security guidelines.
Technical requirements
This work is an adaptation of the WWF-SAFE approach to HWC management. The consultant should be very familiar with the SAFE (policy, prevention, mitigation, understanding the conflict, response, and monitoring) approach or similar methods. The technical requirements of this Statement Of Work (SOW) are thus, essentially laid-out according to the SAFE approach, with a slightly re-enforced early-warning requirement in the fifth Step. Given that SAFE is a broad-based, context-specific methodology, not all steps may be relevant to the same degree or context of application; or given available time and resources. The consultant, using his/her judgment and during the inception process, will be expected to present/discuss these limitations and or modifications.
The early warning aspects of SAFE (Step 2 in the original), has been re-deployed to strengthen Step 5. Step 5 will then be technology-based and will rely on the best possible real-time application of information and communications tools within the given context. The step will enable actors (communities, independent experts, etc.) provide early warnings to the HWC observatory about wildlife movements, or about their destructive activities to enable an early response. The consultant is therefore, expected to team-up (preferably) with a local IT engineer or one to be recommended by WWF Cameroon, prior to preparation of the Technical and Financial bid for this call.
SAFE is a purspose-built framework to manage HWC therefore, as cases and situations in the field may demand the consultant will actively lobby/propose/test lobbying mechanism, evaluate, prepare/propose protocols, develop/propose plans, explore collect information, develop /adapt guidelines, propose analyze frameworks, and or recommend tools/protocols, or provide basic awareness/training, or suggest budgets and monitoring instruments where relevant, etc., to enable the effective roll-out of the SAFE approach across the relevant WWF Cameroon supported landscape; West Coast, CFP, within a reasonable time-frame following the consultancy.
Objective 1: policy mainstreaming; policies and legal protocols to manage conflict animals • Lobby/test mechanisms to lobby local government to adopt/practice legal protocols and frameworks dealing with conflict animals and compensations. • Lobby/test mechanisms to lobby local governments for nested HWC management plans. This can be to improve existing plans or development of new management plans. • Lobby/test mechanisms to lobby for financial support from local governments, NGOs and private sector` towards HWC as part of development aid and poverty reduction programs. (HWC mitigation contributes to SDGs). • Evaluate approaches to support/collaborate with local governments to implement HWC management plans.
Objective 2:preventive measures: fencing; barriers; deterrents, subsidies, incentives; • Evaluate mechanisms for inclusive HWC management in land-use planning. Mainstreaming HWC sensitivity in livelihoods program designs and other development programs • Evaluate previous tests/test and monitor applicable prevention measures like; chili fencing, electric fences, beehives, fireworks, acoustic alarm calls etc., and analyze/collect learnings. • Propose mechanisms, possible structure and consultations requirements for setting up of a community-based and community-managed HWC preventive scheme • Prepare/suggest effective protocols for prevention measures and share/test in CCPO supported landscapes within the country and beyond. • Proposes how to involve local authorities, CSOs, communities in land-use planning (eg how to select sites for growing crops for human and for wildlife to minimize HWC) • Where feasible proposes development of micro-projects to be subsidized and protected, including , though not limited to the following: o Evaluate communal use of agricultural lands with paid guards instead of individual patches. Where applicable promote shared yields to compensate victims for crop raiding losses and negotiate/share the burden amongst farmers. o Evaluate applicable/investment in cottage industries close to homesteads (snails, mushrooms, fisheries, for alternative/additional income sources) o Evaluate subsidized location of fruiting trees next to crop fields o Evaluate use of elevated crop fields and other evasive land use strategies o Explore options for use of alternative crops-ginger, pepper (less favored by elephants or relevant wildlife, etc.) o Explore how to collaborate with local Ministry officials, private sector agricultural companies, NGOs, individuals, etc., to assist in sustainable practices • Develop/adapt education projects for communities to educate them about HWC. propose/organize mini-workshops and trainings how to deal with wildlife movements, behaviors and conflicts. • Develop exercises to simplify/facilitate the use of economic tools to demonstrate value of wildlife to help implement and inspire development of financial mechanism to manage HWC. o Use case study examples where relevant from other settings such as Wildlife Credits (developed by WWF Namibia); gold insurance systems in east Africa, etc.; linking external parties willing to pay for conservation performance. o How to reward actors: communities and others, to act as wildlife stewards instead of turning against wildlife (this is already practiced to some extent under the WWF/PSMNR Conservation Incentive Systems); how to reward local schools proportionally to the number of conflict incidents managed by communities; how can the Education for Sustainable Development – ??ESD program ongoing in the CFP be adapted to this? The community owning/running the school can be rewarded for their conflict prevention efforts (positive feedback (reward) instead of negative feedback (compensation). Objective 3: Mitigation strategies: interim relief, compensation and insurance schemes; alternative livelihoods programs.
• Explore, characterize alternative/additional livelihoods mechanisms to complement practices prone to negative consequences of HWC. • Develop/propose innovative compensation and insurance schemes. Pilot/recommend payment schemes to compensate people who experience damages/losses due to HWC. • Evaluate how to use the economic value of wildlife to implement and finance mitigation measures and to offset the losses caused by wild animals. o Explore possibilities for Wildlife Credits (developed by WWF Namibia); Explore how to provide or pre-empt compensation to communities for living with dangerous and risky animals – elephants, primates ? Eg elephant’s days; compensation for the amount of days an elephant spends on a field and farmer loses production but doesn’t kill beast.
Objective 4: Understanding the Conflict: hotspot mapping; community attitude survey; impact and severity monitoring • Integrate best available social, biological and biophysical (including spatial) science in understanding the nature of the conflict (eg bio-social characteristics of species; migratory habits, phenology, changes to behavior, land use, etc.) o Identify conflict sites/use/update existing data. Map the situation; species involved, actors involved, movement pattern (geographically but also timebound), conflict location etc. o Use existing data/ fill gaps on site-specific studies on crop-raiding behavior of forest elephants and other wildlife (try to identify drivers of behavior). • Perform surveys/update information on communities regarding their perspectives towards wildlife; asset; assess levels of neutrality or strained attitudes. • Involve CSOs, other community groups in organizing sessions to enable dialogue on how to change this perspective? (include cultural/religious relationships and traditions) • Explore role of a SMART database to compliment management of HWC (eg, for recording and tracking conflicts) • Where feasible explore the use of camera traps to record and analyze crop raiding behavior; including wildlife movements; • Evaluate feasibility and practicability of setting up a locally-led conflict resolution committee (facilitated by CSOs; local stakeholders, local authorities)
Objective 5: Rapid response system: information technology package and early warning systems • Recommend/facilitate training of Eco-guards on HWC and how to act in conflict cases • Recommend/facilitate training and awareness for communities using CSOs along suspected wildlife pathways/migratory routes; • Explore/test communications and information technology innovations which can be of assistance in gathering and reporting incidences in real-time, to central information gathering, storage and management (HWC observatory) … • Explore/recommend other technological support mechanisms to monitor animal movements around conflict zones (eg, use of OpenCollar, AI camera traps, etc.)
Objective 6: Monitoring System: HWC program participatory performance planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning system • Help set -up monitoring system for HWC conflict by using a standardized format (SMART model (example of Panthera and WWF Kenya), to collect HWC data. • Recommend nomination/appointment of HWC authority/coordination mechanism who is/are called in to assess/assist in a situation of conflict • Monitor effectiveness of existing prevention measures + recommend data management protocols. • Set up CSO-facilitated citizen science projects; community-based monitoring animal populations and conflicts.
Required deliverables The required deliverables are outlined in the table below. It is expected that the consultant will use the details of the SAFE approach to prepare the technical and Financial Bid. Therefore, selection will depend to a significant extent on the quality of the deliverables taking into consideration the details of the technical requirements of each Step in the SAFE approach. Innovation and experience will score high marks, but these must be realistic, cost-effective and simple to implement in the given context. The details of the timeline for the different deliverables will be discussed and agreed to during the inception process.
Tangible products Key Results Areas Using TORs Consultant will be evaluated on the following: 1 Policy mainstreaming analysis Policies and legal protocols to manage conflict with animals 2 Preventive measures Range of measures including fencing, barriers, deterrents, subsidies, incentives, etc. 3 Mitigation strategies Interim relief, compensation and insurance schemes, alternative livelihoods programs. 4 An understanding of the HWC Hotspot mapping; community attitude survey; impact and severity monitoring 5 A rapid response system Information Technology package and early warning systems 6 A monitoring System HWC program participatory performance planning, monitoring, evaluation and learning system 7 Narrative Report A detailed narrative report of the fieldwork carried-out to evaluate Human – Wildlife interactions with focus on Human-Elephant conflicts in the West Coast of the Mount Cameroon National Park area, is produced including maps, photos, etc…
Consultant profile and requirements
• Proven familiarity with using the WWF – SAFE Approach • Fluent in Spoken English; French would be an asset • An advanced degree in a biological sciences or in a natural resources management domain; Africa experience would be an asset • Must have used the SAFE approach or other HWC management protocol over the past five years. • Strong familiarity with Technology; advanced level of computer literacy with knowledge in use of key software packages for word-processing, databases and spreadsheets, as well as internet; communications, software analysis, GIS, etc. • Good team management and co-ordination skills, with experience working with local government, Civil Society Organization and local communities; • Experience with policy analyses, concise writing of plans, protocols, methodologies, guidelines. • Willingness and ability to carry-out and lead field activities/surveys and travel in villages • Experience and skills in training and transfer of knowledge. • Excellent communication and facilitation skills. • Ability to observe deadlines with accuracy, quality and attention to detail. • A good track record in delivering finished works on time • At least two (02) References who can attest to familiarity with SAFE and related aptitudes.
Work relationship
The consultants main point of contact at WWF CCPO will be the Sr Field Programs Coordinator pmbile@wwfcam.org , and at the CFP, it will be the Manager tngwene@wwf.panda.org. The following will be kept informed; CFP Landscape officer mbakia@wwfcam.org, Regional Delegate, MINFOF South West eremdel2002@yahoo.fr and GFA team leader fstenmanns@gmx.net.
How to apply
Interested candidates must submit, by January 20 2022, an application composed as follows:
– A detailed curriculum vita, explaining the skills for the mission; – A methodological offer explaining the understanding of the mission and the description of the way to conduct it; – A detailed financial offer, mentioning the unit prices and quantities proposed, per diem, all travel expenses.
NB: Be available for an inception meeting on the methodology and calendar of activities before the start of the fieldwork and, as needed, during the fieldwork. The expected start date for the consultation is February 01 2022 Applications should be sent in one document and one email to: recruit-cam@wwfcam.org
Please indicate as subject of the email: “Human – Wildlife – Conflict Management Consultant – SWR, Cameroon “. COVID-19 It is recognized that the current COVID-19 pandemic continues to be severe. The measures prescribed by the World Health Organization and the Cameroonian government must be respected. WWF Environmental and Social Safeguards The consultant is required to comply with WWF social policies, as well as the WWF Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework, policy statements on human rights, indigenous peoples and conservation, gender equality, and the Safeguards Framework document and its nine Interim Standards
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