Interview series: Aristide Chacgom (Green Development Advocates)

Since 2009, Green Development Advocates (GDA) has been advocating for local community and indigenous people’s rights in Southwest Cameroon, where the development of large-scale plantations as well as a conservation area have created various environmental and socio-economic pressures on these communities. During the project’s annual meeting in January 2023, we interviewed GDA’s coordinator, Aristide Chacgom. How did you get involved in GDA? I am an environmental lawyer and joined GDA after graduating from school, and I have been coordinating the activities in GDA since 2015…so that means it has been more than six years! What does GDA do? Beside advocacy work for local communities, we support them by introducing them …

Book chapter: Crises, Complexities and Claims in Protected Areas – Landscape of (In) Coherent Biodiversity Governance and Social-Environmental Injustice in Southwest Cameroon

Assembe-Mvondo, S., Tieguhong, J. C., Wong, G., & Brockhaus, M. (2023) Crises, complexities and claims in protected areas: Landscapes of (in)coherent biodiversity governance and social-environmental injustice in Southwest Cameroon. In Ongolo, S., & Krott, M. (Eds.) Power Dynamics in African Forests: The Politics of Global Sustainability (1st ed.). Routledge, London.

Blog post about land grabbing in Cameroon

Researcher Niina Pietarinen, who was with FairFrontiers researchers during their first trip to Cameroon, explains some of the implications of land grabbing for local communities in West Cameroon in a blog post published by the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation.