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COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article

Front. Conserv. Sci.
Sec. Human-Wildlife Interactions
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2024.1384747
This article is part of the Research Topic Rewilding in Practice View all 7 articles

Reflooding the coupled human and natural system of the Waza-Logone Floodplain, Cameroon

Provisionally accepted
Mark Moritz Mark Moritz 1Chelsea E. Hunter Chelsea E. Hunter 1Paul Scholte Paul Scholte 2*
  • 1 The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States
  • 2 Addis Abada, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The rewilding framework is used to guide the restoration of ecological processes in natural systems, but the framework can also be used in the restoration of social and ecological processes in coupled human and natural systems. We use the case of the largescale reflooding of the Waza-Logone Floodplain in Cameroon three decades ago as an example of rewilding a coupled human and natural system. Drawing on studies that have been conducted of the Logone Floodplain and Waza National Park over the last five decades, we discuss the reflooding efforts, review the long-term impact of the reflooding, and reflect on the assumptions of the reflooding effort. Our review shows that restoring the hydrological and ecological processes benefitted human populations but was not sufficient for supporting wildlife; and, political dynamics impact ecological processes and must be considered for rewilding to succeed.

    Keywords: rewilding, Reflooding, Social-ecological processes, coupled human and natural systems, vegetation, wildlife, Pastoralists, Insecurity

    Received: 10 Feb 2024; Accepted: 30 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Moritz, Hunter and Scholte. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Paul Scholte, Addis Abada, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, Bonn, 53113, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

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