Национальный парк Ваза в Камеруне

National park in Cameroon

Waza National Park is a national park in the Department of Logone et Chari, in Far North Region, Cameroon. It was founded in 1934 as a hunting reserve, and covers a total of Waza achieved national park status in 1968, and became a UNESCO biosphere reserve in 1979. For the preservation and conservation of the biodiversity of the park, a Management Master Plan was drawn up in 1997, reported to be the first of its kind in Cameroon. There is also a proposal to combine this park with the Waza Logone floodplain as a Ramsar Site. The dominant vegetation is in the transition zone between the Sahel and Sudan savanna, containing acacia and open Yaéré savannah forests. The prominent faunal species reported to inhabit the park are the lion, African bush elephant, hyena, hartebeest, roan antelope, Kob, waterbuck, reed, gazelle, Sudan cheetah and West African giraffe. The avifauna reported are geese, egrets, North African ostriches, herons, pelicans, saddle billed storks and ibis.

The park is bounded by the town of Waza to its west, the border with Nigeria, and Chad is only away. The seasonally flooded "Yaéré" floodplain marks the east and north east, and the Maroua–Kousséri road is to the west. The combretaceous shrub savanna consist of Sclerocarya birrea tree savanna, Combretum and Terminalia shrubs and the doum palm Hyphaene thebaica. The Anogeissus leiocarpus woodland is in sandy soils with Mitragyna inermis in pockets near temporary water bodies. Lannea humilis are open grass savanna combined with short annual grasses. Patches of trees and stands of Mitragyna inermis are also reported from small islands near temporary water bodies. In this condition, vegetation reported are in the formations of compact clay. However, the area is very saline due to high evaporation. The fourth category of vegetation comprises Acacia seyal tree savanna growing in black clay soils which gets highly saturated during the rainy months; grasses in these conditions spread very slowly or may even dry up. The last type of vegetation is reported in the Yaéré flood plains, an important area to maintain perennial grasses in the park. The grasses reported are: Vetiveria nigritana, Oryza barthii, Echinochloa pyramidalis and Echinochloa stagnina and a few herbaceous legumes with Sesbania pachycarpa. However, in these conditions, where there are no trees, forest fires are common. The park is open to the public only from 15 November to 15 June and a guide is mandatory to see the wildlife, according to the rules of the park.

The mammal population in the park is one of the largest in central West Africa. Waza National Park harbours a dwindling lion population. In 2010, 14–21 lions were estimated to survive. Waza National Park is also home for one of the last populations of the Kordofan giraffe (G. c. antiquorum). Kob antelope have increased to 5000 in the 1990s since a strong decline in the 1980s. Other large ungulates are warthog and roan. Ostriches have been recorded. Elephants congregate at Mare aux Éléphants, a famous watering hole. Other species noted are hartebeest, tsessebe, olive baboon, patas and vervet monkey, leopard, cheetah and nocturnal aardvark. and Waza toad Bufo wazae, the latter now included in Sclerophrys xeros.

There are 379 species of birds in the park including the contiguous Logone floodplain; among the birds that have been sighted are marbled duck, ferruginous duck, greater spotted eagle, scissor tailed kite in grass lands, lesser kestrel, Nubian bustard (Neotis nuba), quail plover, Arabian bustard Ardeotis arabs, Cattle Egret, hornbill, various species of storks, Abyssinian roller, and Ostrich. Field studies carried out on the killings of lions by poachers in Waza park has indicated that only about 40 lions remain, and they may soon become extinct. One of the reasons attributed to this is inadequate patrolling. Though the IUCN prescribed a norm of one guard to 5000 ha of protected area, the eco guards in the park number far less. This situation is now fairly addressed. Under this project, a management plan has been evolved. A local steering committee has become functional. The project has envisaged controlled harvesting of a few natural products such as straw and gum arabic under field trials, though their extraction has continued even after the park was established. In 1983, the park had a staff of twenty five rangers; however, as of 2005, that number had dropped to seven, and poachers from Chad, Nigeria, and Cameroon itself were reported to have gone on a "rampage for the park’s resources." Also in 2005 the Netherlands World Conservation Union Committee agreed to pay for an additional sixteen "eco rangers" who would assist the regular ones. Floodplain rehabilitation to enhance the carrying capacity of the flood plain started in 1994, and is reported to have some beneficial effects in the park. As the Waza National Park is the major beneficiary from the project, the statistics show that 370 species of resident and migratory birds are now found in the Waza Logone area which covers eight specific habitat types, and the number of waterfowl had increased from 59,000 in 1993 to 87,000 in 1997. Similarly, fish production from the flood plains had increased to 2,000 tonnes (dry weight) in 1996/1997 (fish species bred covered Clarias sp., Tilapia sp., Alestes sp., Petrocephalus sp., Labeo sp. and many others. The yield from the pastures was reflected in the growth of livestock to about 100,000 units in the dry season.