Hirokazu Yasuoka (Associate Professor, Kyoto University) Dispatch report, Cameroon(2023/12/07-2024/12/19)

cameroon/country/fy2023/report/Uncategorized
  1. Home
  2. cameroon
  3. Hirokazu Yasuoka (Associate Professor, Kyoto University) Dispatch report, Cameroon(2023/12/07-2024/12/19)

Report on Dispatch to Cameroon

Kyoto University
Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies
Associate Professor, Hirokazu Yasuoka

Figure 1: Observation of NTFPs production and processing at Gribe Field Station

I traveled to Cameroon from December 7 to 19, 2023. The forested area in southeastern Cameroon is inhabited by hunter-gatherers called Baka. In this region, Kyoto University has implemented two SATREPS projects from 2011 to 2016 and from 2018 to 2024. I am the principal investigator of the latter project (Projet Coméca). This project aims to create a management system for various non-timber forest products and wildlife distributed in tropical rainforests in collaboration with local people, and it shares a common problem statement with the “Ecological Future making of Childrearing in contact zones between hunter-gatherers and agro-pastoralists in Africa” a project funded by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S).
In these projects, two field stations have been constructed (one under construction) and are operated by IRAD (Institute of Agricultural Research for Development), the counterpart in Cameroon. Graduate students of our team are conducting research at the stations, and we plan to make use of them in our future research activities.
During this trip, I observed the research and social implementation activities already being conducted jointly by Kyoto University and IRAD at the Gribe Station, and discussed how to link these activities to our research, including the use of the Zoulabot Station, which is under construction.

Figure 2: Zoulabot Field Station under construction
Figure 3: Meeting at IRAD. Ongoing research activities and results were shared and future research activities utilizing the field stations were discussed.

In Yaounde, we had a meeting with researchers from IRAD, which operates the field stations, to share ongoing research activities and results, and research related to our project, and to discuss how to utilize the stations in the future to promote our research.
From FY2024, our research activities related will play a central role in research using the two field stations. During this trip, we were able to establish the foundation for such activities.

Report PDF