Yaoundé, 21 August 2026 – As Cameroon celebrates the triumph of the Indomitable Lionesses on the African stage, attention must also turn to another national heritage at a crossroads: Ebo Forest and the need to secure the customary land rights of the Banen communities, who have claimed these ancestral territories for generations.

For more than 60 years, Banen communities have been unable to return to their ancestral lands in Ebo Forest after being displaced from their villages in 1963. Yet the historical question of their rights over these lands remains unresolved. And the stakes are becoming increasingly significant. In 2023, the Cameroonian government classified part of Ebo Forest and opened it to industrial logging. Together, the two logging concessions covering Ebo span 133,392 hectares. Logging companies have since obtained harvesting rights within these areas.

For the Banen communities, therefore, the issue is not simply whether trees will be cut down. It is about who has the right to decide the future of their ancestral lands.

Fifteen years of unfinished land reform, while communities’ customary lands continue to be allocated

In 2011, the Cameroonian government launched a reform of the country’s land tenure framework, with the aim, among others, of addressing persistent land governance challenges. Yet fifteen years later, the reform remains unfinished, and customary land rights are still not legally recognised and secured.

The paradox is concerning: while the legal framework intended to better secure land rights is still being developed, forest lands historically occupied or claimed by communities continue to be classified as part of the State’s private domain and allocated to other uses, including industrial logging.

At Ebo, this disconnect is particularly visible. The forest is not an empty space waiting to be allocated. It is an ancestral territory that carries the history, culture, livelihoods and future aspirations of the Banen communities. When these lands are allocated for industrial uses while customary rights remain inadequately secured, communities risk losing not only access to the forest, but also their ability to determine the future of their territory.

“Our land is not simply space on a map. It carries our history, our villages, our sacred places and our livelihoods. We want our customary land rights to be legally recognised and secured. We cannot build a future for our communities if we do not know whether we will still have control over our land tomorrow,” said His Majesty Victor Yetina, Banen Traditional Leader.

When forest loss becomes land loss, protecting forests means protecting rights.

When communities lose the ability to access, manage and protect their ancestral forest, forest loss becomes a loss of control over their land.

“Securing community land rights is not only a matter of justice; it is also a conservation strategy. The work of the IPCC shows that land tenure security is associated with better forest management and reduced deforestation and degradation. At Ebo, recognising and securing the rights of the Banen therefore also means creating the conditions for the long-term protection of the forest,” said Stella Tchoukep, forest and biodiversity campaigner at Greenpeace Africa.

This approach is particularly important in a context where forest governance and natural resource management still need to be strengthened. The World Bank’s 2025 report on Cameroon’s natural capital shows that timber harvesting activities respond to immediate economic needs but generate significantly less value than the ecological services provided by intact forests, particularly their capacity to store carbon.

In other words, preserving a standing forest does not mean giving up its economic value; it means preserving the greater part of that value over the long term. The same report also calls on Cameroon to prioritise intact forest ecosystems with high ecological and economic value.

Greenpeace Africa therefore believes that, in a context where forests remain exposed to significant economic pressures and where their governance still needs to be strengthened, Cameroon cannot continue to prioritise the immediate value derived from exploitation at the expense of the long-term value of its forests.

Forest protection and community land tenure security must therefore be treated as two inseparable dimensions of the same challenge.

A paradox that must end

Fifteen years after the launch of the land reform process, it is difficult to accept that decisions on land allocation continue to be made while the customary rights of communities claiming those lands remain inadequately secured.

“The government cannot ask communities to wait for the completion of the land reform process while continuing to classify and allocate forest lands that they claim as their ancestral territories. Securing land rights must come before decisions that could determine the long-term future of these territories. At Ebo, this paradox must be resolved,” continued Stella Tchoukep.

Turning Ebo’s second chance into lasting protection

Ebo has already demonstrated that decisions about the future of forests can change.

In 2020, strong mobilisation by Banen communities, civil society and other actors helped secure the suspension of plans to open Ebo to logging. That mobilisation demonstrated that another path was possible: protecting the forest while working towards recognition of the rights of communities with ancestral ties to it.

That opportunity still exists.

Greenpeace Africa therefore calls on the Cameroonian government to:

  • Cancel the logging concessions allocated in Ebo and freeze the allocation of new concessions in territories where local communities and Indigenous Peoples claim customary land rights, 
  • Consider sustainable alternatives to logging, and engage the local communities living around the forest to develop an inclusive land-use plan.
  • Accelerate and complete the land reform process launched in 2011, with full recognition and legal protection of customary land rights of Indigenous People and local communities, including rights over traditional forest lands.
  • Guarantee meaningful community participation in decisions affecting their territories, including through participatory land-use planning and mapping, a clear legal framework, and respect for Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

Ebo needs its forest. Its communities need their land.

The communities of Ebo do not simply need their forest to remain standing. They need secure rights to the land that makes their future possible.

Having previously called for Ebo to be given a second chance, Greenpeace Africa is now inviting Cameroonian decision makers, citizens and everyone committed to defending the forests of the Congo Basin to help turn that second chance into real, lasting and rights-based protection.

Media Contact:

Raphael Mavambu, Communication & Storytelling Manager, [email protected], Greenpeace Africa

Stella TCHOUKEP, Forest & Biodiversity campaigner, [email protected], Tél: +237 694 590 679, Greenpeace Africa