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This story by Olivia Losbar originally appeared on Global Voices on November 22, 2025.
By Leocadia Bongben
Returning from the sea one morning in July with his catch, Nerville Eboma Ndomo, 25, is helped by young men and women at the Ebodje makeshift landing station. His wooden boat with a movable engine attached is pulled out of the water onto the sand so the women can extract the fish entangled in the net and later smoke them.
Following in the footsteps of his forefathers as a member of the Iyassa clan of fishers, Ndomo, a student on holiday, is trying to perfect his fishing skills. Around 80 percent of the Iyassa people of Ebodje in the Campo sub-division, Ocean division of the South region of Cameroon (370.9 kilometers from Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé) work in this profession. Adjusting his headlamp used at night to indicate presence at sea, Ndoma says:
Ebodje, a fishing community of approximately 3,000 people, relies on sea products, such as sardines, and subsistence agriculture for survival. The community’s coastline forms part of the Manyange Na Elombo Campo Marine Protected Area, which spans 110,300 hectares ( 272557.236 acres)and encompasses 10 villages, including Ebodje. Here, the marine park lies in the Atlantic Ocean, along the maritime border with Equatorial Guinea. Fishing in Ebodje is exclusively done by the locals, unlike in the Douala-Edea National Park, where a myriad of foreign fishers, including Nigerians and Ghanaians, are present.
The custodian of the culture, His Majesty Ndjokou Djongo Christian Michel, third-class chief of Ebodje, explains in an interview with Global Voices
Equally important are the links with Manyange-Turtle and Elombo-Wolf-Rocks, sacred sites of the Iyassa people from which the Marine Protected Area (MPA) derives its name.
Ebodje is known for its turtles, which local people believe are family members. The turtles and other endangered marine species residing in the MPA, such as whales and dolphins, are a great attraction for tourists.
As of 2025, Cameroon has protected 11.1 percent of its marine areas, according to SkyTruth’s 30×30 Progress Tracker. This step is part of an ambitious goal agreed upon by nearly 200 countries in December 2022 at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) to safeguard 30 percent of Earth’s natural areas by 2030. Cameroon is a signatory to this framework and has completed and submitted its national targets in accordance with its domestic strategy, NDS 30, and the Kunming-Montreal Global Goals.
Amidst the challenges plaguing the world’s oceans, such as overfishing, plastic pollution, and rising waters, Marine Protected Areas have evolved as a tried-and-tested method of preserving marine life, supporting coastal communities, and contributing to the worldwide 30×30 target. To support this goal, national governments designate MPAs within their territorial waters, with input from scientists, conservation groups, and local communities.
However, achieving the 30 percent marine target seems elusive for Cameroon, unless the governance of MPAs is improved to protect marine biodiversity.
According to numerous experts, the procedure for designating the Manyange na Elombo-Campo MPA in Cameroon was not based on any scientific research, and when it was decreed, there was no publicly available management plan in place.
“No research was done to support the creation of this marine park,” says Ndounteng Ndjamo Roderic Xavier, coordinator of the Tube Awu (Our Ocean), a Community Research and Development Association, with headquarters in Ebodje. The marine park was also created without a management plan, and consultation with the locals was carried out afterward, contrary to MPA guidelines.
Some members of the community are still unaware of the MPA’s import and mission, as well as how it will affect their livelihoods. Mambo Emile Ebodje, who is from the Ebodje community, noted:
Against this backdrop, the marine protected area faces several challenges — ones that the local communities are working hard to mitigate through participatory monitoring. Yet the protected area continues to face threats.
When a sea turtle specialist named Jacques Fretey visited Ebodje for research in 1999, he stoked the locals’ desire to protect their culture, thus planting the seeds for the establishment of an MPA. Fretey notes:
Twenty years later, in 2021, Manyange Na Elombo Campo was designated an MPA after local chiefs and university professors began advocating to the state administration. However, the official decree contains few details.
The decree states that the objectives of the marine park are:
It also notes that any human activity that may interfere with these objectives “may only be undertaken following environmental impact studies.”
Notwithstanding, there is little information available regarding the level of protection or management activities of Manyange Na Elombo Campo and other marine parks in Cameroon, such as Douala-Edea in the Littoral region, which is half land and half sea, and Ndongere in the Southwest region, which is in the process of being designated an MPA.
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Around 22.9 kilometers ( 14.23 miles) from the border of the MPA, the Kribi deep seaport is impacting the marine environment via light and noise pollution, trawler activity, and dike construction. The port was constructed by China Harbor Engineering Company, a division of China Communications Construction Company Ltd. (CCCC), with its headquarters in Beijing.
The environmental impact assessment of the port, conducted in 2021, does not indicate the number of kilometers that were surveyed, so it’s unclear whether evaluations were done close to the MPA border. While the study indicated a shrinking coastline and the potential for increased pollution, since the project was not within the boundary of the MPA, it did not halt construction. Fretey says:
This corroborates a 2022 study showing weakening coastline and coastal erosion in the area.
In addition, the constant passage of ships close to the marine park creates noise pollution that is amplified in the water, says Joel Wanba Tchinda, an aquatic ecosystems, fish, and megafauna program officer at Tube Awu. However, he adds, the influence on marine life has not yet been investigated and needs to be measured.
A 2024 article in Mongabay about the Kribi deep seaport cites a water pollution expert, Benjamin Ondo Obiang, who said in the article:
Fretey agrees, noting that some of the development has violated legal frameworks for the sustainable management of threatened aquatic and marine wildlife and habitats:
The marine ecosystem and species conservation could be threatened by industries other than the port. A local NGO, Youth for Promotion of Development, has indicated that the Sinosteel Cam SA (a subsidiary of the Chinese company Sinosteel Corporation) iron project may contribute to pollution by producing excessive dust, which could eventually deposit particles in the marine park.
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Wanba highlights the Sinosteel Environmental Impact Assessment, which showed that dust would be projected into the atmosphere. He says:
There is also the potential for water pollution, Wanba explains:
Other threats loom nearby, Wanba says. Franco-British company Perenco, a liquified gas plant offshore, is also in the area, 68.5 kilometers (42.52 miles) away. This may explain the “petroleum residue” Wanba says was found at the bottom of the marine park.
Camvert, which operates palm oil plantations 33.2 kilometers (20.63 miles) away, also uses many fertilizers and pesticides, and these are likely to trickle down the river and into the sea, . Aware of the difficulties facing sustainable and economic development, as well as government development, Wamba says research must be carried out to produce concrete evidence for policy change.
However, Maha Ngalie, Director of Wildlife and Protected Areas at MINFOF, says in line with conservation strategies, the ministry envisages greater cooperation with the Kribi deep seaport and the industrial projects in the area. Ngalie reveals:
But Fretey, who was part of the group that worked on the management plan with NGOs that was proposed to the government, says,
If such development continues unchecked, Cameroon is at risk of further damaging its protected marine ecosystems and sabotaging its long-term sustainability and conservation goals.
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