WWF Cameroon Upturns Social Development for Conservation

Most of the world’s ecosystems and areas rich in biodiversity are home to local communities and indigenous peoples whose livelihoods and cultures depend wholly on them.  The Congo Basin, which is the second largest tropical rainforest in the world, is also home to about 75 million people and 150 distinct ethnic groups. As WWF works to stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which people live in harmony with nature, success depends on the extent to which conservation contributes not solely to the maintenance and preservation of ecosystems and biodiversity but also to the well-being of the people that depend on these ecosystems for survival.
 
Ensuring an integrated livelihood and conservation nexus is of utmost importance to WWF’s priorities for environment and social safeguards. Social development therefore, has a central role in WWF’s conservation agenda ranging from gender, human wildlife conflict, human rights, indigenous people etc. In line with WWF's commitment to strengthen the social dimensions of its project, programmes and policy work, WWF social principles are fundamental to creating effective, lasting and equitable solutions to today's environmental and social challenges.
 
These principles are intended to strengthen conservation results, outcomes and ensure their sustainability into the future. WWF currently has four social policies (Indigenous People, Poverty and Conservation, gender and Human rights) that are intended to guide the integration of social dimensions in its conservation work.
 
The need to incorporate social issues into WWF’s practices, strategies and our work is pressing more than ever before. It is in this light that WWF Cameroon Country Program Office integrated social indicators in its reviewed strategic plan. The indicators include institutional capacity for resource governance, conflict over natural resource use and access to resources. The goal of this is to improve its contributions to social development and better measure its social impact in WWF supported areas for the benefit of people.