Cedrick Fogwan is a Cameroonian conservationist and he wants to save the goliath frog, the largest living frog in the world and an endangered species.
“When I found this species was unique – the biggest one in the world – I said this is something that we cannot easily find elsewhere and I was proud of it,” he says.
“People in the area say they are blessed to have something like that; they attach to it a cultural value.”
via BBC
With his Master’s degree in Marine and Fresh Water Ecosystem Management, his work involves improving Cameroon’s declining biodiversity and that includes the goliath frog. The main reason for this is catching animals for meat at a faster rate than they reproduce but Fogwan and his team have started liaising with hunters and getting them to become conservationists themselves. They’ve also offered alternative foods, such as snails, to replace the frog’s meat in their diets.
According to the BBC, this work is showing positive results as there have been sightings of the goliath frog in the Mont Nlonako Wildlife Reserve in the Littoral Region of Cameroon.
You can read more about Fogwan and his project on Planet Forward.
Filed under: animals aquatic ecology Cameroon education marine biology people of colour