The Bakossi National Park adjoins the Bayang Mbo Wildlife Sanctuary to form Kupe Muanenguba forest
landscape, an important zone for the protection of primates and the African rainforest habitat of the
Guinea-Congolian basin. The Bakossi National Park (BNP) is a protected area located at 5.049907°N and
9.567719°E, covering a surface area of 29,320 hectares (72,500 acres). It have the largest zone of cloud or
sub-montane forest in West Central Africa (Royal Botanic Gardens, 2011). It has one of the best
developed sub montane forest in West Africa and rich in montane endemics of Guinea-Congolian affinity
(Kew Gardens, 2010). It is a unique hotspot for many primate species, including the Drill(Mandrillus
leucophaeus), one of the most endangered primate species in the world, and the Chimpanzee (Pan
troglodytes). Other primates include Preuss’s red colobus, Red-eared guenon, Preuss’s guenon, Puttynosed monkey, Mona monkey and mammals like Blue duikers, Red river hog, Red-fronted duiker, Blackfronted duikers, Sitatunga, and Long tail pangolin, African forest elephant, (WWF Coastal Forest
Programme, 2012).

This project sought to establish grounds for long-term collaborative conservation of Drills and Nigeria
Cameroon Chimpanzees in the Bakossi National Park by filling the gap in field surveys created through
Cameroon’s Socio-political unrest (Anglophone Crises). This project was a pilot survey focusing to train
and test the efficacy of engaging Bakossi locals with good Ecological Knowledge as social scientists, for the
monitoring of the ecological corridor linking the Bakossi National Park and the Bayang Mbo Wildlife
Sanctuary in order to provide information on population, distribution, habitat use and threats to these
primates that are endemic in this area.Additionally, the unrest has hindered effective protection of the
protected area from hunting and habitat degrading activities like logging, farmland encroachment and
bushfires due to government agents of Forestry and Wildlife inability to access this zone. This has created
adouble facet conservation need; in data acquisition and wildlife surveillance, and anti-poaching.It is in
response to this halt of scientific research and challenges of government patrols that there is need for
funding to support the training and to closely work with the locals of these communities. This Project
trained 04 local community field researchers in the use of camera traps, GPS, Cyber Trackers, data
gathering along transects and anthropogenic, assessments and deploy them in the field for monitoring
along the corridor.
FReECo focuses to promote the long-term conservation of threatened Chimpanzees and Drills in the
Bakossi National Park through local empowerment, collaboration, and participation.