Waza National Park - Management

Management

The park is managed by the Conservation Service of the Waza National Park, part of the Cameroon Ministry of Environment and the Protection of Nature. Waza, which was considered the best-managed protected area in Cameroon, now has established collaboration with the IUCN Waza-Logone project to improve the water availability conditions, specifically in Waza National Park (1,700 square kilometres (660 sq mi)) and the much smaller Kalamaloue National Park (48 square kilometres (19 sq mi)), as well as other areas adjoining them through the Waza-Logone Project. The area covered under this project, which forms the flood plains of the basin covered by the two river systems of the Logone River to the Logomatya River, contributed significantly to the floodplain Biosphere Reserve, and sustained a very large number of mammals and birds which depended on the annual inundation of the flood plain. With the construction of the Maga Dam, built for irrigated agriculture of rice, the water resource contribution to the flood plains underwent a drastic reduction. To improve the sustainability of the flood plains of the two parks, IUCN embarked on a project titled "IUCN’s Waza-Logone Project" with specific objectives of improving fish production, enhance the quality of grazing lands on which the local population were dependent; and to also increase the surface water for subsistence and proliferation of vegetation and wildlife, including avifauna not only of resident birds but also birds that migrate from Europe during the winter season. Under this project, launched by IUCN in 1994 in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and the Protection of Nature of Cameroon, the hydrological condition of the wetland has undergone improvements following creation of two seasonal watercourses that interconnect the Logone River with the Logomatya River and facilitates water flows spreading to the floodplains. This plan has worked out well and wetlands conditions of the flood plains is reported to have improved substantially.

Under this project, a management plan has been evolved. A local steering committee has become functional. The project has envisaged controlled harvesting of a few natural products such as straw and gum arabic under field trials, though their extraction has continued even after the park was established.

In 1983, the park had a staff of twenty-five rangers; however, as of 2005, that number had dropped to seven, and poachers from Chad, Nigeria, and Cameroon itself were reported to have gone on a "rampage for the park’s resources." Also in 2005 the Netherlands World Conservation Union Committee agreed to pay for an additional sixteen "eco-rangers" who would assist the regular ones.

Floodplain rehabilitation to enhance the carrying capacity of the flood-plain started in 1994, and is reported to be have some beneficial effects in the park. As the Waza National Park is the major beneficiary from the project, the statistics show that 370 species of resident and migratory birds are now found in the Waza-Logone area which covers eight specific habitat types, and the number of waterfowl had increased from 59,000 in 1993 to 87,000 in 1997. Similarly, fish production from the flood plains had increased to 2,000 tonnes (dry weight) in 1996/1997 (fish species bred covered Clarias sp., Tilapia sp., Alestes sp., Petrocephalus sp., Labeo sp. and many others. The yield from the pastures was reflected in the growth of livestock to about 100,000 units in the dry season.