Forest Hero

Bees for Development congratulates Paul Mzeka and the organisation he founded in Cameroon, Apiculture and Nature Conservation (ANCO), for winning the International Forest Heroes Award. The Award was recently launched by the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) to recognise people all over the world who are working in quiet and heroic ways to sustain, protect and manage forests.

Paul writes:

A lot has changed since I last met with Bees for Development at the Apimondia Congress in Switzerland, 1995. At that time the name of my organisation was the North West Beefarmers’ Association. In 2002 our name changed to ANCO. By then we had trained over 7,000 bee farmers in Cameroon. However, my recognition is not for my contribution to bee farming, but rather for the biodiversity conservation work which ANCO took up seriously in 2002. We teamed up with NGOs to integrate conservation with sustainable land management and rural poverty reduction. We have helped 30 communities to protect watersheds and to conserve four community forests by planting a total of 685,000 trees. In February, along with four other persons from Asia, Europe, North America and South America, UNFF presented us with Forest Heroes Medals.

What do you think about lobbying APIMONDIA to institute awards for outstanding contributions to bee farming over the five continents?

Paul Mzeka, ANCO Coordinator, Bamenda, Cameroon For more information on UNFF see www.un.org/esa/forests