Sidonie Asseme never
succeeded in persuading her father to let
her join the military. That was her desire
in 2005 when she passed a test to join the
Cameroon army. He had wanted his daughter
to be a nurse, in order to provide much
needed health care to people in their village
in eastern Cameroon.
But Asseme’s mind was
set on serving, and somewhere in her there
was a silent voice that prodded her on.
So in 2006, she secretly went in for the
recruitment of game rangers without the
knowledge of her father.
“Daddy was unpleasantly
surprised when he learnt I was already taking
training as a forest ranger,” says Asseme,
now aged 35. “Today he upholds my effort
and says he is very proud of me.”
Although rewarding, it has been a difficult
journey, Asseme says. “We went through very
difficult training. There were times I felt
like giving up, but that omniscient voice
kept urging me on.”
In collaboration with Cameroon's Ministry
of Forestry and Wildlife, WWF helped finance
the recruitment and training of Asseme and
other rangers. Through the WWF programme,
she and her colleagues were taught how to
use sophisticated mapping, global positioning,
and tracking technologies, and how to plan
anti-poaching surveillance missions. The
rangers have also received equipment, such
as uniforms and vehicles, provide by WWF.
After training, Asseme
was deployed to a town near Cameroon’s Lobéké
National Park, where she has participated
in several anti-poaching operations, and
helps teach residents about the value of
their environment.
“I confiscated four
ivory tusks and a panther skin,” Asseme
says. “The poacher pleaded with us saying
the ivory tusks did not belong to him.”
A woman of valour, she
has contributed to the arrest and detention
15 poachers.
Dangerous work
Like most game rangers working in Central
Africa, Asseme has been threatened and assaulted
by wildlife criminals.
“Once we were attacked
and beaten by poachers in a logging town
near Nki National Park. Some local people
intervened and rescued us,” said Asseme.
She will never forget the day poachers locked
her and three other rangers in a house and
threatened to set them on fire.
“We had obtained authorization
from the village’s traditional leader to
search houses where we suspected ivory tusks
had been hidden. But we got encircled by
irate youths inside one of the houses for
four hours. They threatened to kill us,”
Asseme says, “I was really frightened.”
Using their training
the rangers broke free and escaped safely
from the village.
The incident did not
deter Asseme from continuing her duties
as a ranger.
“I had fathomed the risks involved in this
job before going for it,” Asseme says, “I
hope to continue working as a game ranger
for a long time. I love wearing this uniform.
“I was born in the forest and I feel it
is a moral obligation to protect the forest
and its wildlife,” she says.
Breaking gender barriers
As a female in the ranger profession, Asseme
is in the minority, but she says her gender
does not affect her work.
“I do not feel any different working with
men. We eat together, sleep in the same
tents, and take our bath in the same river,”
she says. “Moreover, we underwent the same
training.”
“She is more than a
woman,” says Ngonda Arlen, one of Asseme’s
few female colleagues. “In the forest she
walks at lightning speed and hardly gets
tired.”
Asseme is not known as someone who complains,
but she does have one request. “We need
better arms and logistical support to enable
us do our jobs. If I meet the Minister of
Forestry and Wildlife this is the main message
I will put to him.”
+ More
Document pulps APP’s
tiger sanctuary claims
Pekanbaru, Sumatra –
A document released today by WWF and partners
confirms that a supplier to paper giant
Asia Pulp and Paper is clear felling natural
tropical forests the company designated
as tiger sanctuary.
The document throws into doubt APP claims
on Tuesday that current clear cutting activities
of supplier PT Ruas Utama Jaya (RUJ) were
taking place narrowly outside rather than
inside the Senepis Tiger Sanctuary.
The APP document, “Proposal
for Rationalization of Senepis-Buluhala
Sumatra Tiger Conservation Area”, shows
Sinarmas Forestry (APP) and RUJ executives
signing off on sanctuary boundaries that
clearly put current large scale clearing
inside the boundaries.
“APP really needs to come clean on its incredible
shrinking tiger sanctuary,” said Aditya
Bayunanda, pulp & paper coordinator
of WWF-Indonesia. “In its media campaigns
APP seeks major credit for its minor contribution
of about 8000 ha to the 106,000 ha tiger
sanctuary.
“And now, according to the map signed off
by its executives, it is busily clearing
and draining even that minor contribution.”
As recently as 2010,
APP was claiming that the presence of its
supplier’s concessions on the sanctuary
boundaries would provide additional protection.
Satellite imagery however shows that huge
areas of dense tiger forest that government
and scientists had proposed as the Senepis
National Park have now been cleared and
drained.
“The real story of APP’s tiger conservation
impact in this area is not that they contributed
only around 8000 ha of their own concessions
to the sanctuary and are now clearing that
anyway, but that overall they have been
responsible for the loss of around 49,000
hectares of the Senepis tiger landscape,”
said Hariansyah Usman of Walhi Riau, part
of the Eyes on the Forest coalition that
conducted the investigation.
“Meanwhile, they are running this massive
greenwash advertising campaign through the
world media and via various front groups
to portray themselves as champions of tiger
conservation.
“In trying to deny they are clearing their
own designated tiger sanctuary, they have
confirmed that they are clearing tiger forest
and they are pulping tropical forests in
defiance of public commitments to halt this
by 2004, then by 2007, then by 2009 and
now by 2015.”
The world of difference between APP’s claims
and its practice is detailed in the new
Eyes on the Forest report “The Truth behind
APP’s Greenwash”. On climate, the report
notes how emissions calculations conducted
for APP and used in its greenwash campaigns
disregard the immense emissions from draining
deep peat areas such as Senepis for short
lived plantation establishment – calculations
suggest the carbon footprint of APP paper
could be more than 500 times the APP consultant’s
claim and 10 times the North America pulp
and paper sector average.
The company’s greenwash campaigns and the
lobbying of front groups have however failed
to prevent a host of major companies ceasing
to buy paper products from APP. In the Netherlands,
APP’s print and television advertisements
have been judged misleading to the public
by the country’s Advertising Codes Commission.
