By Fergus O’Leary Simpson
NORTHERN Cameroon is facing a crisis that epitomises the interconnected challenges of our time: climate change, armed conflict, and environmental degradation. This combined threat has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee the semi-arid Far North Region for more fertile savannas further south. With little available land, many people have settled in the vast network of protected areas in the North Region – lands set aside by the state to conserve flora and fauna.
In response, a coalition of international NGOs is working with the Cameroonian government to scale up conservation efforts – but not always to the benefit of some local communities. This is happening in two ways: by bringing in the military to support conservation law enforcement; and through a “micro-zonating” exercise – to clearly define areas for human activities and biodiversity protection.
These measures have begun to curb biodiversity loss. In some cases, they have drawn local support for improving local security by deterring bandits and armed poachers from protected areas. However, heavy-handed methods are also creating conflicts between park authorities and displaced and migrant populations.
The climate-insecurity nexus
Cameroon’s Far North has long been on the front line of climate change. The region has suffered recurrent droughts, most notably during the 1970s and 1980s. This has led to successive waves of southerly migration to more fertile regions. Perhaps the most striking symbol of the changing climate is the shrinking of Lake Chad, a large part of which overlaps with northern Cameroon. A vital water and fish source for millions, the lake shrank by 90% between 1960 and 1990. While the size of the lake now appears to be stable and even increasing again, climatic changes continue.
Temperatures are rising – one and a half times faster than the global average. This is driving more climate variability and extreme weather events. 2024 marked the most severe drought in the Far North since the 1990s. Similarly, severe flooding struck the Lake Chad Basin in both 2022 and 2024, forcing millions to flee and submerging farmland. During the 2022 floods, 19 of the 23 provinces in the basin’s southern region were impacted, disrupting the lives of close to 1.5 million people.
But climate change is not the only reason people are moving. The northern regions of Cameroon have also long grappled with insecurity. This largely stems from the failure of the state to maintain law and order. Over several decades, this has led to a massive increase in armed banditry, kidnappings, and highway robbery – both domestically driven and emanating from Cameroon’s restive neighbours. Sometimes, state agents are themselves involved in this shadowy economy.
The jihadist insurgent group Boko Haram, based in northeastern Nigeria, is one of the more recent and severe sources of insecurity. It began carrying out cross-border attacks, lootings, kidnappings, and bombings in the Far North from 2013 onward.
Coupled with climate change, the Boko Haram crisis has slowed a regional economy heavily dependent on agriculture, pastoralism, and cross-border trade. The human toll is even more devastating: thousands killed, injured, or forced to flee. Around 120,000 Nigerian refugees have spilt into Cameroon, while a further 321,000 Cameroonians are internally displaced. This contributed to Cameroon recently topping the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Neglected Displacement Crises of 2024 index.
Pressure increasing on protected areas
This mix of climate change and conflict is straining protected areas.
Located close to the Nigerian and Chadian borders, Waza National Park was once the most visited park in central Africa, attracting – at some points – more than 5,000 tourists a year. This thriving industry provided local residents with jobs in hotels, as guides, and in handicraft production.
However, in February 2013, seven French tourists vacationing nearby were kidnapped by gunmen some suspected to be affiliated with Boko Haram. Since then, tourism has come to a standstill, the local economy has crumbled, and the park is now on the brink of collapse. At the same time, climate change has turned nearby lands barren, pushing cattle herders into the park in search of pasture.
The environmental impact of displacements created by the insurgency has been severe. The arrival of refugees has also increased demand for charcoal – much of it sourced from Waza National Park – speeding up deforestation and biodiversity loss.
While claims that Boko Haram poached elephants for their ivory have proved to be exaggerated, Waza’s iconic population of more than 1,000 savannah elephants has all but disappeared. Some migrated south to Kalfou Forest Reserve or north to Kalamaloué National Park. Others became trapped after migrating to Nigeria: A trench dug by Cameroon’s military to keep Boko Haram out also cut off their return route.
Cameroon’s North Region has largely avoided the worst of Boko Haram’s violence and climate-induced droughts. Yet the crisis has still placed significant strain on both the region’s people and its environment.
Waves of refugees, economic migrants, and internally displaced persons from the Far North Region have triggered what locals refer to as a demographic explosion around protected areas. Covering over 40% of the territory, spanning a huge 3.35 million hectares, these areas include three national parks: Bouba Ndjida, Benoué, and Faro.
There are also 28 hunting zones, or Zones d’Intérêt Cynégétique (ZICs), containing critical ecological corridors that link the three national parks. Taken as a whole, the landscape forms the last major wildlife refuge remaining in north-central Africa.
The migrants and displaced persons have been forced to settle in the ZICs and ecological corridors – these being some of the only cultivable lands still available. But their farms are now blocking critical wildlife migration routes.
The North Region has also experienced insecurity of its own, with dramatic impacts for both conservation and people.
In 2012, Janjaweed militias from Sudan slaughtered more than 200 elephants in Bouba Ndjida National Park.
In 2018, six soldiers from Cameroon’s elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) and two local trackers were killed inside the park by Sudanese poachers.
Compounding these threats, the protected areas in Cameroon’s north have become hideouts for armed criminal gangs: Known as Zaraguina, they hijack vehicles and kidnap civilians for ransom.
The militarisation of conservation
The Cameroonian government has responded to these threats by militarising its conservation efforts: “Operation Peace at Bouba Ndjida”, launched at the end of 2012, marked the beginning of this strategy.
Each year since, from December until the end of May, the BIR dispatches 600 troops, 60 armoured vehicles, and an air squadron to the region. The timing aligns with the dry season (November to April or May), when elephants migrate seasonally towards water sources in the park – a period historically marked by heightened poaching.
This militarised approach has been replicated in Benoué and Faro National Parks, where mixed patrols – comprising the Cameroonian military and park eco-guards – have been established to enforce conservation laws.
The mixed patrols take place both inside the national parks and the surrounding ZICs. In the former, the patrols are organised and paid for by Cameroon’s government-run conservation agency, MINFOF, and its international conservation partners – World Conservation Society (WCS) for Benoué and Bouba Ndjida, and the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), in Faro.
In the ZICs, however, these patrols are financially supported by the landowners or concession holders themselves. They frequently arrest foreign and Cameroonian poachers, cattle herders, and artisanal gold miners during operations.
As seen elsewhere in central Africa, the militarisation of conservation has fuelled local resentment. For instance, during the dry season, herders frequently bring their cattle into the parks to graze due to scarce pasture and water elsewhere. My month-long research on the ground and scores of interviews reveal multiple cases of the mixed patrols killing cattle inside these areas – as well as instances where herders retaliate, attacking with rifles or machetes.
The access restrictions imposed by the patrols are particularly contentious in the ZICs. These areas are managed by foreign – typically European – businesspeople and used predominantly by European and American trophy hunters. As a result, some villagers feel the interests of outsiders are valued over and above the local population.
This is compounded by the fact that local communities only receive 10% of the concession fees – with the remainder split between the central state (50%) and district authorities (40%). Furthermore, the small fees communities did receive have mostly dried up as insecurity has deterred the foreign hunters that once came to the area.
Tensions are even higher in the ecological corridors connecting the parks. Communities displaced by Boko Haram have established farms directly in the corridors, and violent confrontations often occur when the mixed patrols are sent in to evict them.
Recognising the need for law and order
The militarisation of conservation has undoubtedly heightened tensions with migrants and displaced persons around the northern parks. Yet, conservation NGOs and park managers argue that it has also enhanced protection for large mammals, particularly elephants, by drastically reducing poaching incursions. This is consistent with past research from Benoué National Park that highlights the importance of conservation law enforcement personnel to sustain populations of large mammals.
Ironically, the 2012 massacre marked a turning point for Bouba Ndjida, transforming it into northern Cameroon’s most secure national park. With an influx of international funding and military support, the park now boasts the region’s highest abundance of large mammals, according to conservation professionals.
In communities living around the parks, there are also those who have welcomed the strict law enforcement approach. This is particularly the case for Indigenous communities who have inhabited the area since pre-colonial times.
Their support stems from two factors.
First, the parks’ legitimacy is rooted in local history that extends beyond colonial imposition. Bouba Ndjida and Benoué National Parks were formally designated by the French in the 1930s. However, long before that, they formed a part of the Lamido (chief) of Rey Bouba’s private hunting reserve.
The current Lamido of Rey Bouba recounts how his grandfather supported the creation of the parks to “protect the wildlife”. As a result, the designation of the parks faced little opposition – with some people willingly relocating to areas with better access to roads and markets. The idea that hunting and other forms of resource extraction are restricted in parks is therefore embedded in the local consciousness.
Secondly, some Indigenous communities have experienced tangible security improvements since the joint operations commenced. While wildlife protection remains the primary objective of the mixed patrols, they have also yielded ancillary benefits for local law and order.
Echoing a previous study conducted around Waza National Park, several respondents advocated for expanded conservation law enforcement in both protected areas and adjacent villages. As one man from Koum village, adjacent to Bouba Ndjida’s headquarters, remarked: “Since the mixed patrols began, our village has become much safer. No kidnappers or armed poachers dare enter anymore. There are no downsides – we want even more soldiers here!”
??Others suggested that improved security might facilitate the return of tourist hunting, which historically provided both employment and meat for villages.
The dual and competing effects of militarised conservation – enhancing security for some while increasing vulnerability for others – mirror the findings of my research in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. They also speak to the dilemma facing states and conservation NGOs across unstable parts of the central African region: How do you safeguard protected areas while also addressing the livelihood needs of the often marginalised people living around them?
Strengthening conservation efforts – including with military support – can curb biodiversity loss and enhance human security, to an extent. Yet, unless the root causes of instability within the climate-conflict-conservation nexus are addressed, such measures could ultimately serve to inflame tensions, for both people and wildlife.
Edited by Obi Anyadike.
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