Voice of Nature (VoNat) has produced five beehives that will be used to support efforts by the Mount Cameroon National Park (MCNP) Service and other partners to limit deadly human-elephant conflict in the West Coast Cluster of the Mount Cameroon National Park. 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. In May 2023, VoNat and MCNP carried out monitoring and evaluation of the beehives and discovered that out of 100 hives installed 5 were completely bad, needed replacement. The 5 hives produced, will therefore, be installed as replacements of the bad ones.
The production of the bee hives came shortly after a team of both the Park and VoNat staff rebaited about 76 hives to enhance the colonization rate of beehives along the Park border, as a means of limiting elephant incursion into the community.
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. This phase of the initiative was carried out with funding support from Lush Charity.