About Us
Please know us in detail! This page provides information about:
Creation, Mission, Vision & Aims
Our mission:
“To promote livelihood and conservation through dialogue, participatory education, training and research”
Our Vision:
“Local people have the capacity to play a central role in creating and maintaining resilient ecosystems as well as fostering policies that promote their rights to water, food security and a clean, healthy and safe environment.”
Our History
The Centre for Nursery Development and Eru Propagation (CENDEP) was created in 1999 as a farmer group and legalized as a Common Initiative Group (CIG) on the 19th of July 2000. Over the years CENDEP evolved into an agriculture and forestry extension service provider. It now engages in activities ranging from sustainable agriculture promotion, plant domestication, restoration and protection of degraded forests especially those that serve as watersheds. In this way CENDEP is contributing towards improving the economic well-being and quality of life for individuals, communities, and nations. We do this in collaboration with government, private sector, civil society, and international organizations with whom we share a common vision.
The founding members of CENDEP where farmers who that were trained on how to grow Eru, a forest vegetable that was at the risk of disappearing due to unsustainable harvesting.
After the training they decided to stay together so as to share experiences on the knowledge they had acquired. They adopted the name Centre for Nursery Development and Eru Propagation, CENDEP. CENDEP later embarked on extending the skills and knowledge acquired to other farmers in the region in order to promote the conservation of the resource and to improve the livelihoods of the farmers. Today CENDEP has evolved to address other environmental needs as well as needs of grassroots farmers, recruited skilled personnel to meet emerging challenges and extended its activities to other parts of the of Cameroon and the central African region.
CENDEP’s contribution towards poverty reduction and environmental protection at grassroots level has progressed so far, thanks to financial and institutional support from national and international donors and other strategic partners. In order to respond adequately to the needs and challenges among its target population and to fulfill the dual need for livelihood improvement and biodiversity improvement, CENDEP adopted as mission statement: “To become a lead organization in Cameroon engaged in building capacities of grassroot organizations for the sustainable management of natural resources and in the production and marketing of non timber forest products and agricultural products of economic importance towards poverty alleviation”.
Our activities in each community are intended to culminate in a standard of living that meets basic human needs and provides a sense of well-being, dignity, and quality of life for the local people. Through our activities, the local people should be able to directly or indirectly have or improve access to adequate shelter, nutritious food, clean water and sanitation, safe and secure environment. Thus, we aim to contribute in creating a more equitable and sustainable world where everyone has access to basic needs and opportunities for personal growth. The activities we embark on are community-led, inclusive and responsive to the needs of the people. These include:
Analog forestry & Sustainable agriculture promotion
Analog Forestry is an approach to ecological restoration which uses natural forests as guides to create ecologically stable and socio-economically productive landscapes. Analog Forestry is a complex and holistic form of silviculture, which minimizes external inputs, such as agrochemicals and fossil fuels, instead fostering ecological function for resilience and productivity. Analog Forestry values not only ecological sustainability, but recognizes local rural communities’ social and economic needs, which can be met through the production of a diversity of useful and marketable goods and services, ranging from food to pharmaceuticals and fuel to fodder.
Our analog forestry program was initiated in response to community concerns about increasing land degradation and deforestation of watersheds and existing forest patches in land-scarce, montane and savannah areas, coupled with an increasingly intense use of agro-chemicals including fertilizers to maximize crop productivity by local people in Cameroon. These are practices with negative impacts in fragile ecosystems. CENDEP introduced analog forestry in 2006 to support ecological production systems that provide benefits directly to the producer while at the same time minimizing the impact that chemical-based systems have on the natural environment. We train and accompany locals in nature-based approaches such as the analog forestry approach that helps them restore degraded and deforested areas as well as enhance their income generation opportunities through diversification and improved agricultural practices.
In NW Cameroon, the sites targeted for analog forestry are degraded forests that serve like watersheds as water is one of the most critical resources in the area and is the driving force for analog forestry adoption. One of our pioneer analog forestry demonstration sites is the Kitiwum “analog or man-made” forest measuring 18.5ha. Today this forest has made it possible for over 12000 people to have water throughout the year because the forest has led to a rise in the water table. More and more communities are adopting this technology for the restoration and protection of their watersheds. This has been thanks to consistent support from our partners in the North amongst which are: Netherlands Committee of the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN NL), New Englands Biolabs Foundation , WWF through Russell E Train.
Across Africa, we are working with strategic partners Both ENDS, Netherlands (www.bothends.org) and the International Analog Forestry Network – IAFN (www.analogforestry.org), based in Costa Rica in the sensitization and training of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
We provide residential training to CSOs across Africa consisting of theoretical and practical field exercises thereby equipping these organizations with the necessary tools to engage in sustainable ecosystem restoration efforts in their target communities. With the advent of the covid-19 we embarked on virtual training.
Domestication of Non Timber Forest Products
Wild honey, fruits, edible leaves such as eru and roots, medicinal plants, spices, gum, fuel wood and rattan are amongst the 710 Non timber forest products from our forests be they natural primary, managed or created, in Cameroon. They are a source of income for and livelihoods, can be used as entry point for sustainable forest management and conservation.
Wild stocks of a number of non timber forest products (NTFPs) of economic, cultural and medicinal importance in Cameroon are currently threatened due to unsustainable and over exploitation in response to national and international market demands, poverty, ignorance and agricultural expansion. Stocks closer to residential and farming areas are increasingly being depleted causing local people to cover longer distances into the forest to find them.
CENDEP adopted the principle of ‘conservation through cultivation’ and enrichment planting for NTFP species which have potential for on-farm cultivation to ensure their existence and availability in the long term and to offset deficits that may arise in demand and supply from production in the wild.
One of the threatened NTFPs is Gnetum spp (Eru). It is a highly priced and harvested NTFP in the forest regions of Cameroon. Because of free access and high demand, there has been an influx of commercial exploiters from neighboring countries. This has resulted in the fast decline of the wild stocks but no data is available to substantiate this as no comprehensive inventory is available.
Over the last decades, the Limbe Botanic Garden (LBG) has researched and developed sustainable ways of cultivating eru for both income generation and biodiversity conservation purposes. The LBG has made the following outstanding advances in the domestication and conservation of eru:
• The development of a cultivation model using eru vine cuttings.
• The establishment of experimental/demonstration farms.
• The organisation and training of farmers and extension workers on how to cultivate eru.
• The production of an eru cultivation manual and the establishment of a gene bank.
We teach willing farmers how to grow this crop in their fields and also how to sustainably manage the wild stocks. By assisting old farmers to improve and/or expand existing farms we aim to raise production beyond traditional levels to meet local, national and international market demands in the long term.
Lobby & Advocacy activities
At CENDEP, advocacy is never just about raising awareness about an issue, problem or situation. It is always about seeking to bring about change in the policies, practices, systems, structures, decisions, and attitudes that cause poverty and injustice so that they work for those who live in the situation.
We empower women with different advocacy approaches and techniques that enable them to access land in a more secure manner and regenerate their degraded forest lands thereby protecting their water sources and producing clean food for their communities. In Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Uganda, Togo, and Zimbabwe, we work with local partners, providing training and backstopping on a collective advocacy plan adapted to the local realities.
Our advocacy work empowers local people to protect their environment, promote sustainability and community development. Most smallholder farmers and especially women are usually less empowered to defend their land rights than other land users (such as wealthy individuals and politicians) who are becoming more and more interested in plantation agriculture. Since smallholder farmers and women are less powerful, they find it more difficult to request for and obtain large surfaces. Through training workshops we identify their challenges and with them plan how to go about solving problems identified.
Most of the customs and traditions of Cameroon discriminate against women as far as land ownership is concerned. Even in places where women can easily access land for their farming activities, requesting and obtaining larger surfaces for expansion can be a serious challenge. Also, in many cultures, women are not allowed to control land. They hardly inherit land and when they lose their husbands, the land belonging to the household can be seized by other family members.
We empower the local people to advocate for solutions that promote equality, equity, and justice for all genders, addressing the social, economic, and cultural disparities that affect individuals based on their gender. By organising themselves into legal entities they can meet with local decision-makers and can be able to influence local policies. By linking with other communities, sharing their stories they are attracting attention.
Thanks to the support of
our donors and partner
