Examples from Cameroon and other countries highlight the capacity of non-wood forest products to provide employment, income and sustenance in times of crisis

Forests are power bases, but often for the wrong people. As attention turns from making an international deal on REDD to making it work on the ground, the hunt will be on for practical ways of shifting power over forests towards those who enable and pursue sustainable forest-linked livelihoods.

It is agriculture that brought malaria with it if humans had not abandoned their nomadic ways for agriculture, two important events would be missing from the history of civilization: deforestation and domestication of animals. Man would also not have heard of diseases like aids and swine flu. In 2007, the World Health Organization put down the number of people killed by the

Benin has declared a state of emergency and called for international humanitarian aid after floods hit the south of the West African country.

The government estimates that some 2,000 families have already been displaced by flooding caused by heavy rains and it appealed late Monday for immediate help to prevent the imminent spread of epidemics.

The objective of this report is to explore the topic of carbon sinks in forest ecosystems, focusing on the issue of REDD.

Researchers in Cameroon, led by Judith Anchang-Kimbi of the University of Buea, have found that testing placental tissue shortly after birth is the best way to accurately diagnose malaria in pregnant women. Medical staff across Sub-Saharan Africa have struggled to diagnose specific types of malaria parasites in pregnant women, who face significant health risks.

Honey production is frequently promoted as a pro-poor income generation activity as it is accessible to many members of a rural community, has low start-up costs and requires little land or labour. But while apiculture (beekeeping) presents an opportunity for many African farmers, the potential to create a significant livelihood from selling honey often remains out of reach.

Awudu Ngutte works as a project co-ordinator for INAPA, a small organisation based in Buea, Cameroon. He has been receiving LEISA Magazine since 2004, sharing it with his colleagues and other organisations. He was particularly interested in issue 23.2,

As new mechanisms for

Forest elephants in Cameroon and the Congo Basin could be extinct within 10 years without measures to fight the illegal ivory trade and curb habitat loss, a WWF official said in an interview.

During the last 40 years, environmentalists estimate the forest elephant population has fallen 75 percent, standing at some 140,000 for the Congo Basin and 13,000-15,000 for Cameroon.

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