East Region: Elephants destroy nearly 100 hectares of food crops

Reports say encroaching elephants from the Lobeke National Park in Cameroon’s East Region have destroyed nearly 100 hectares of food crops, after storming a banana plantation on January 27.

Popular Cameroonian website, Actu Cameroon, reported on Friday that about 29 households have been affected in the attack.

It is the latest of a series of recent attacks by animals on food crops in the Moloundou and Salapoumbe localities, which are the closest to the Lobeke wildlife reserve.

It has become a worrying situation to residents of the forest area, which shares boundary with the Republic of Congo.

“We are awaiting the reaction of our hierarchy, which has been regularly informed,” the Divisional Delegate for Forestry and Wildlife for Boumba-et-Ngoko, Hilaire Jean Andre Bekoko, is quoted to have said.

Based on an assessment they did on December 15, 2022, he said elephant and other animal attacks on farms have destroyed: 52 hectares of cocoa; 21 hectares of Banana-plantain, 4 hectares of cassava, and 3 hectares of cocoyam all of them belonging to 29 households.

Mimi Mefo Info