ERUDeF

The Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF) is a non-profit organisation with a mission to conserve biodiversity and protect the environment through research, training, education and community engagement.

Established by Louis Nkembi in 1999, the organisation aims to promote conservation in local communities that are native to Cameroon and Nigeria, by directly investing into them.

This allows for connections between communities to be made, and motivates them to rally together to conserve their natural and ancestral lands.

Did you know?

Indigenous communities protect 80% of the global biodiversity, despite comprising only 5% of the entire world's population!

Therefore it is of major conservative importance that these communities are well supported to tackle conservation needs.

Investments come in many forms, mainly through:

The provision of funding to carry out conservation practices
The provision of tools to carry out conservation practices
Providing training and education of conservation practices with well-established local businesses (e.g more sustainable agricultural methods) and with school children

ERuDeF is running many innovative programmes to assist in; re-storing the fragile ecosystem, regeneration of forest land, conservation of biodiversity, promoting environmental education and empowering rural communities and the people within them.

"Louis Nkembi's project is not only protecting the rainforest but also helps the needs of the locals by providing a solid-base for long-term conservation" Sir David Attenborough

ERuDeF aims to have four returns across three different zones, these being the natural zone, economic zone and the combined zone.

They aim to achieve the return of inspiration, return of social capital, return of natural capital and the return of financial capital to each of the three zones specifically.

You can find out more about this, along with a lot more information on the ERuDeF website!