Staff of Voice of Nature (VoNat) and the Mount Cameroon National Park Service (MCNP) have been engaged in rebaiting beehives along the Park border at West Coast Cluster, as part of efforts at limiting deadly human-elephant conflict in the area. The bee hives rebaiting exercise, which ran from May 25 to 26, aims to enhance the colonization rate of beehives along the Park border, as a means of limiting elephant incursion into the community.
The West Coast Cluster is one of the conservation zones of the Mount Cameroon National Park bearing the greatest brunt human –elephant conflict. In order to mitigate this conflict, the Mount Cameroon National Park Service and partners installed beehives along the park border experiencing this conflict. On May 5-6, 2023, VoNat and MCNP carried out monitoring and evaluation of the beehives and discovered that out of 100 hives installed, 19 were colonized, 76 needed rebaiting, while five needed replacement.
It is cognizant of this that the VoNat and MCNP decided to jointly embark on a mission to rebait all 76 beehives along the park border. VoNat’s support and active involvement in the monitoring & evaluation and rebaiting of the beehives installed to mitigate human-elephant conflict in the West Coast Cluster of the Park, was lauded by the Park Management. Meantime, VoNat is currently embarking on the production of beehives that will be installed in the days ahead to replace bad ones.
The rebaiting of these beehives was carried out as part of the pilot phase of VoNat’s “Save the Elephants Initiative” that aims to establish an eco-friendly system that will contribute to enhancing the peaceful co-existence of the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) with adjacent communities of the Mount Cameroon National Park, most especially in the West Coast Cluster.