Ecological Balance Cameroon Diaspora Fund
History and Background
Ecological Balance Cameroon (Eco Balance) was founded in 2016 in response to the rapid degradation of natural ecosystems and declining livelihoods in biodiversity-rich rural communities in Cameroon. The organization was born from my lived experience growing up in a nature-dependent rural community in the North West Region. After completing secondary and tertiary education and returning home, I witnessed extensive destruction of forests, watersheds and farmlands as driven by short-term economic needs and poorly regulated external activities.
Eco Balance initially operated as a grassroots environmental advocacy initiative, mobilizing communities to resist unsustainable exploitation. However, by 2019, we recognized that conservation efforts lacking economic alternatives were unsustainable. This insight led to a strategic shift toward a community-led, livelihood-centered conservation model, integrating environmental protection with income generation, education and local governance. Today, Eco Balance works across multiple regions of Cameroon to empower communities to protect, conserve and regenerate ecosystems while improving their socio-economic resilience.
Vision and core goals
We envision a world where every action is environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable for present and future generations. Beginning from Cameroon, our mission is to empower biodiversity-rich communities independently undertake actions that guarantee the long-term conservation of their adjacent ecosystems. As guided by the principle that ecosystem conservation is most successful and sustainable if it is led by people living adjacent to it and more so if it contributes to their livelihoods.
Our core goals include: to restore degraded ecosystems/landscapes and strengthen climate resilience; promote sustainable livelihoods that depend on healthy natural systems; reduce pressure on forests and watersheds through regenerative and clean technologies; build community leadership, knowledge, and ownership of conservation outcomes and generate evidence and learning to inform policy and scalable conservation practice.
Programmes and present &future activities
Our Nature Revamping Programme focuses on restoring degraded landscapes and critical ecosystems through community-led action. Key activities include community mobilization for ecosystem restoration planning & maintenance, establishment & management of community tree nurseries, reforestation of degraded forest, watershed /catchment and riverbank areas as well as the use of citizen science for monitoring restoration efforts. We hope to scale these activities across landscapes, integrating satellite data, GIS and participatory monitoring systems.
Our Regenerative Agriculture Programme addresses land degradation, food insecurity and climate vulnerability by promoting regenerative land-use practices. With roots in the desire to mitigate unsustainable agricultural methods like slash and burn. We have established demonstration plots, trained farmers in agroforestry and other sustainable practices in promotion of climate-smart farming systems to reduce forest encroachment. We look forward to establishing a regenerative agriculture demonstration and training center/hub, bringing farmers together in multi-hectare regenerative cooperatives and integrating food sovereignty, nutrition, and market access into farming systems.
Our Irvingia Programme demonstrates how conservation can directly improve incomes and livelihoods. We promote ethical sourcing practices linked to forest conservation and train/support women and youth in value addition and quality improvement, enabling higher market prices. We plan to scale Irvingia enterprises into a cooperative with regional market coverage, establishing revolving funds and conservation-linked microfinance mechanisms and develop branding & traceability systems for sustainably sourced products.
Our Community Outreach Programme enables us to cater for the very pressing needs of communities like pipe borne water etc thereby boosting community commitment and participation in our projects.
Our Sustainable Education Programme is an enabler that preceeds all projects seeking to prepare the minds of local people for sustainability. Activities cut across community environmental education & awareness campaigns, school-based programmes introducing conservation ethics and climate literacy as well as youth centered participatory learning sessions linking local challenges to national and global sustainability goals. We hope to develop locally adapted educational materials and curricula, expand inter-generational and peer-learning platforms and use community media and digital tools to scale outreach in the future.
Our Clean Energy Programme reduces environmental pressure and improves wellbeing through access to sustainable energy solutions. We do community sensitization on the environmental and health impacts of unsustainable energy use and promote of clean cooking and energy-efficient technologies.
We are gearing up for the deployment of clean energy powered systems for community institutions, expansion of clean cooking solutions to reduce fuelwood dependence. We are positive that sometime soon we will train local technicians for maintenance and sustainability of clean energy systems.
We recognize the importance of evidence-based practice and adaptive learning, hence from 2026, we include a Research & Learning Programme to document and evaluate of programme impacts and lessons learned. We will also pioneer community-led research integrating indigenous knowledge and scientific methods; partnering with academic and research institutions and generating learning outputs to inform policy, practice and scaling in the process.
Strategic Outlook
Over the next five years, Ecological Balance Cameroon aims to scale its integrated conservation-livelihood model, deepen the use of data and learning, and strengthen sustainable financing mechanisms. By linking ecosystem restoration with regenerative production, clean energy, and inclusive livelihoods, we seek to demonstrate that environmental regeneration and human wellbeing are inseparable.