- Members of the Cameroon chapter of the Centre for Biodiversity and Sustainable Development-Cameroon (CBSD-Cameroon), have been schooled on e-learning with the objective of adequately building their capacities to fully assume their duties of biodiversity conservation.

The in-house training was in line with the United Nations Environment Programme which created the Pan African e-Learning for the Environment Network and which organised the African region into seven sub-regional hubs. Every hub is expected to develop the sub-regional component of the network; assist national centres with the development of e-Learning strategies and action plans; encourage partnership with existing networks in the region as well as encourage sub-regional hubs to provide regional e-learning courses.

Speaking in Yaounde recently during the training session, the president of CBSD-Cameroon, Chief Augustine Bokwe, said, electronic technology in communication has enhanced environmental education, university teaching and health programmes all over the world and "the UN is telling Africa to use the technology". The training was meant to drill participants who will develop manpower for the sub-region, enable the sub-region to catch up with other sub-regions in Africa and assist the countries of the sub-region to benefit from the innovation. Through paper presentations and plenary discussions, participants were drilled on topics like, "introduction to e-Learning (historical background)"; "what is e-Learning", "e-Learning formats", "structure and titling e-Learning Courses" as well as a view of a sample e-Learning course and global campus and open sources tools.

According to the Executive Secretary of CBSD-Cameroon, Neckmen Samson, the NGO is concerned with environmental education and the creation of public awareness on biodiversity. With e-learning, he said, education can be carried out for life. "It is a shift from the traditional classroom education to a global education whereby you can stay in your bedroom with your internet and follow up a course anywhere in the world", he said, adding that here environmental education, the raison d'être of their NGO, can be disseminated through the internet.