Deforestation

From 2000 to 2020,Cameroon experienced a net change of -626 kha (-1.7%) in tree cover.In 2021, Cameroon lost 167 kha of natural forest, equivalent to 105 Mt of CO₂ emissions.

From 2000 to 2020, Nigeria experienced a net change of -1.47 Mha (-6.1%) in tree cover.In 2010, Nigeria had 10.9 Mha of natural forest, extending over 12% of its land area. In 2021, it lost 96.5 kha of natural forest, equivalent to 65.3 Mt of CO₂ emissions.

(Source: Global Forest Watch)

Habitat Loss

Nigeria’s human population has increased almost fivefold from 1950 to 2010 to 158,259,000, and Cameroon’s population has increased almost fourfold during the same time to 19,958,000 (United Nations 2009). The prognosis is that the populations of these countries will again increase in the next twenty years: to nearly 29 million in Cameroon and to nearly 227 million in Nigeria. With the rapidly growing human population in the region, the phenomenon of "empty forests" has appeared with increasing frequency. In these empty forests, due to traditional hunting, there are hardly any large mammals left.

In Nigeria, several forest reserves have been converted to farmland and to commercial oil palm and rubber plantations. Large areas of forest surrounding key protected areas have already been converted to oil palm plantations. In Cameroon, new logging concessions continue to be established, and logging companies can quickly clear and upgrade existing seasonal roads to support the evacuation of timber year round. This road access opens up the forest to more intense hunting pressure.

Poaching

Tridom is a hotspot for poaching of African forest elephants. Genetic analysis of confiscated ivory showed that 328 tusks of African forest elephants seized in the Philippines originated in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. 2,871 tusks seized in Hong Kong between 2006 and 2013 originated in Tridom. The hard ivory of the African forest elephant makes for more enhanced carving and fetches a higher price on the black market. 

This preference is evident in Japan, where hard ivory has nearly monopolized the trade for some time. Premium quality bachi, a traditional Japanese plucking tool used for string instruments, is contrived exclusively from African forest elephant tusks. In the impenetrable and often trackless expanses of the rain forests of the Congo Basin, poaching is extremely difficult to detect and track. Levels of off-take, for the most part, are estimated from ivory seizures. The scarcely populated and unprotected forests in Central Africa are most likely becoming increasingly alluring to organized poacher gangs.

Late in the 20th century, conservation workers established a DNA identification system to trace the origin of poached ivory. Due to poaching to meet high demand for ivory, the African forest elephant population approached critical levels in the 1990s and early 2000s. Over several decades, numbers are estimated to have fallen from approximately 700,000 to less than 100,000, with about half of the remaining population in Gabon. In May 2013, Sudanese poachers killed 26 elephants in the Central African Republic's Dzanga Bai World Heritage Site. From mid-April to mid-June 2014, poachers killed 68 elephants in Garamba National Park, including young ones without tusks.

Bushmeat trade

It is not ivory alone that drives African forest elephant poaching. Killing for bushmeat in Central Africa has evolved into an international business in recent decades with markets reaching New York and other major cities of the United States, and the industry is still on the rise. This illegal market poses the greatest threat not only to forest elephants where hunters can target elephants of all ages, including calves, but to all of the larger species in the forests. There are actions that can be taken to lower the incentive for supplying to the bushmeat market. Regional markets, and international trade, require the transporting of extensive amounts of animal meat which, in turn, requires the utilisation of vehicles. Having checkpoints on major roads and railroads can potentially help disrupt commercial networks. In 2006, it was estimated that 410 African forest elephants are killed yearly in the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests.