Cécile Bibiane Njebet

Cécile Bibiane Ndjebet is a Cameroonian environmental activist and social forester. She is recognised internationally for her work in advocacy for women's rights to land and forest resources. For her contribution to conservation and gender equality, she was awarded the 2022 Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award and the 2025 Kew International Medal.

Early life and education Ndjebet was born in a rural locality near Edea in the Littoral region of Cameroon, the 9th of 14 children. From the age of four, she learned to farm and gather forest products, such as mushrooms, firewood, and medicinal plants. These early experiences established a sense of responsibility and resourcefulness regarding the ecological presence in her life. She holds an agronomy degree from a university in Cameroon, studied at University of Wolverhampton in the UK, and earned a Master of Science in Social Forestry from Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands.

Her academic background integrates ecological science, gender studies, and rural development, bridging the gap between environmental policy and women empowerment. Currently recognized as a gender specialist, she is a PhD candidate at the Central Africa Catholic University, where her research focuses on "Gender relations, access to land and socio-economic situation of women in the Cameroon rural coast".

Career

Ndjebet started her career in Cameroon as a civil servant 1986. In 1997, she joined the civil society Organizations. She has been devoted to women's rights issues and is being involved in the national, regional and international forestry, REDD+ and climate change processes for the past 15 years. In 2009, to promote women's direct and effective participation in natural resources management in Africa, Ndjebet, together with a group of African Women Rights advocates. She is the President of the African Women's Network for Community Management of Forests (REFACOF), an organization promoting women's participation in natural resources management in. Over 600 hectares of degraded land and mangrove forests which have been restored under her stewardship of Cameroon Ecology, an organization she founded in 2001. Those early experiences would shape Ndjebet's life. She would go on to become a leading voice for women's land rights in Africa, spending three decades advocating for gender equality while also repairing hundreds of hectares of nature marred by development the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has named Ndjebet a Champion of the Earth for Inspiration and Action, one of the United Nations' highest environmental honours.

Awards

2022 : Wangari Maathai Forest Champions Award 2023: Gulbenkian Prize