Organisational Profile

We are a registered charity organisation with over 20 years of experience working with rural communities in Cross River State of Nigeria. Cross River State is largely agrarian and forest dependent with highly vulnerable rural populations exposed to degraded natural resource base exacerbated by poverty, disadvantaged economy, social exclusion, limited knowledge and very low capacity to influence and/or adapt to environmental and/or socio economic shifts. DEVCON positions itself to respond to these challenges to build social and environmental resilience while improving the living conditions of rural/peasant communities.

DEVCON works in forest dependent communities in Cross River State, reaching out to over 35,000 people. These communities include those in Afi forest area and the Ekuri/Iko/Okpon forest bloc. DEVCON is directly working with these communities to protect at least 80,000ha of community-managed pristine forest. These sites are critical as habitats to endemic species of plants and animals, some of them identified as endangered. These community-managed forests are also contiguous with protected areas (National Park, Forestry Reserve, and Wildlife Sanctuary) in Cross River State and so provide the very important buffer and corridors for wildlife.

In the past 5 years especially DEVCON has intensified its response to deforestation and forest degradation through large-scale support for community forestry, livelihoods improvement, and policy influence. DEVCON focuses on four components as follows:

  • Sustainable forest management

    Sustainable forest management component with focus on community land use and forest management planning by clarifying land use zones for sustainable land/forest management and developing by-laws for effective rule enforcement; as well as developing community nurseries and regenerating degraded forest sites with indigenous tree species.

  • Ecotourism/community tourism

    Ecotourism/community tourism component to improve forest value and create opportunity for education, leisure, and income for the community and others from outside.

  • Livelihoods component

    Livelihoods component with focus on improving agricultural and forest products value chains e.g. cocoa, cassava, bush mango etc. to address the food and income needs of communities including youth, men, and women, without undermining other ecosystem services. DEVCON Multi-purpose Cooperative Society support small scale business owners and rural farmers through capacity building and small loan facilities to enhance their businesses and farm productivity.

  • Institutional organizing component

    Institutional organizing component that supports capacity building for local communities and facilitates linkages with and between relevant government institutions to sustain conservation outcomes from DEVCON’s work.