Mount Bamboutos once stood as one of continental Africa’s most ecologically rich mountains. Its slopes supported gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, antelopes, and a dazzling array of endemic birds, amphibians, and butterflies. At 2,740 metres above sea level, this towering ecosystem in western Cameroon was a biodiversity hotspot and the country’s second largest water tower, sustaining thousands of communities across the surrounding lowlands.
Today, the picture looks very different. Decades of unchecked deforestation, intensive farming, and unregulated land use have stripped the mountain of its original forest reserve, which was first gazetted in the early 1900s. Springs that once fed entire villages have dried up. Soil erosion has worsened year after year, leaving farmlands increasingly infertile. The communities that depend on this landscape for food, water, and economic survival now face a deepening crisis.
This is the challenge that the Mount Bamboutos Initiative (MBI) was created to address. A collaborative project led by the Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF), the International Tree Foundation (ITF), and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the MBI brings together government partners, local communities, and implementing organizations like Operation Green Space to restore what has been lost.
The ambition of the initiative is significant: restoring over 35,000 hectares of degraded landscape through the planting of 15 million trees, training more than 30,000 community members in sustainable ecosystem management, and securing critical biodiversity zones including a 19,000-hectare reserve, 10,000 hectares of community forest, and 5,000 hectares of riparian forest along waterways.
Operation Green Space serves as the implementing partner in the South West sector of the project, covering the Alou and Wabane subdivisions and three villages: M’muock Fosimardi, M’muock Mbi, and Bamumbu. On the ground, that means working directly with farming families, training them in agroforestry techniques, helping them manage natural resources more sustainably, and planting trees in the areas that need them most.
The MBI is not just about planting trees, though. The project also focuses on establishing effective governance and land use systems, ensuring food security and economic resilience for over 30,000 households (with particular attention to women and gender considerations), investing in biodiversity research, and building long-term financial sustainability through a community foundation and a conservation trust fund.
For the people living on and around Mount Bamboutos, this project is personal. It is about ensuring that the water still flows, the soil still nourishes crops, and the forests still shelter wildlife for generations to come. If you would like to support this work, visit ogscameroon.org/donate to make a contribution, or reach out to learn how you can get involved.
Support Operation Green Space: Visit ogscameroon.org/donate to plant a tree or ogscameroon.org/get-involved to join our mission.
