theSIGNAL ENVIRONMENT
26 October 2026
"We shape our cities, and then our cities shape us."
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Environment

Yaoundé Lost Four-Fifths of Its Trees

As Cameroon's capital sprawls over its valleys and hillsides, residents are quietly replanting what bulldozers and housing shortages have erased.

Sosthène Hugues Ngono can still point to the exact spot where he used to bring his first dates. Today it is a private car park. The public park in Essos, a crowded neighbourhood of Yaoundé, was flattened in February last year, and the 36-year-old mathematics teacher now stands at the edge of the asphalt like a visitor at a grave. "It was where I came to clear my head when things felt confused," he says.

His loss is small, but it belongs to a pattern that the numbers make hard to ignore. According to a University of Yaoundé study, the city covered roughly 85 square kilometres in 1984; by 2024 it had grown to about 470. Over the same four decades, the share of land covered by trees fell from 28.6% to just 5.

4%. The pressure behind this expansion is easy to understand. The United Nations put the capital's population at 5.1 million in 2025, while Cameroon's housing ministry estimated a national shortfall of 2.

5 million homes in 2020, felt most sharply in the capital. Because formal construction cannot keep pace, much of the city's growth has been informal, with settlements built without permits across valleys, wetlands and hillsides that once formed its green belt. Yet a counter-movement is taking root, literally. Jean-Baptiste Tchengang, a self-taught gardener aged 34, has run composting and plant-preservation workshops from his plot in Nkolbisson since 2022, a district that researchers identify as one of the city's earliest zones of expansion.

Photo: Jacques Nel / Unsplash
Cars fill a former public park in Yaoundé as the city's tree cover keeps shrinking.
Discuss
  • Yaoundé's tree cover fell from 28.6% to 5.4% in forty years. Which cause do you think matters most?
  • Informal housing fills the gap left by a shortage of 2.5 million homes. Should green belts ever be sacrificed for housing?
  • Tchengang says ornamental plants bring colour and coolness. Can small private gardens replace large public parks in a city?
Environment

The Island That Switches Off for Seabirds

For five nights each autumn, Corvo, home to roughly 450 people and the Azores' smallest island, turns off its public lights. Young Cory's shearwaters, which navigate by starlight on their first flight to sea, were crashing into the village streets, confused by the glow. Residents began rescuing fallen chicks in 1991, and a regional campaign followed in 1995. Corvo remains the only island to stage a full blackout.…
  • Could deliberate darkness protect wildlife in busier places, or only on tiny islands?
Environment

Britain Loves Electric Cars. Why Weaken the Target?

Ninety-four percent of British EV drivers say they are saving money, at about 2.4p a mile, while a full petrol tank approaches £120. Yet ministers are weighing a cut to the 2030 electric-sales target, from 80% to perhaps 50%. Analysts at the ECIU estimate that this could add 147 megatonnes of CO2, about 58% of Rosebank's likely emissions.…
  • If drivers already love electric cars, why might governments still weaken targets?
"
It was where I came to clear my head when things felt confused.
Sosthène Hugues Ngono, mathematics teacher in Yaoundé
EUROPE · Environment
Heat killed ‘staggering’ 50,000 people in Europe’s cities this summer, scientists warn
AMERICAS · Environment
‘Bolso shows all signs of fascism’: the journalist who predicted Brazil’s future – and paid the ultimate price
ASIA · Environment
At Cop17, the pressure is on to rescue a deal that could end the destruction of nature
GLOBAL · Environment
Week in wildlife: a bookworm bear, an angelic spider and a bald hedgehog
theSIGNAL IN THE LAB
1VOCABULARY
flattenedshortfall
informalgreen belttake root
offsetblackout
2GRAMMAR FOCUS
Reported speech — statements, questions, commands with tense shift
When we report what someone said, the verb usually shifts back one tense (is → was, has built → had built, will → would, can → could), and time words change (now → then). Reported questions use normal statement word order with no auxiliary 'do' and no question mark, and reported commands use 'told/asked someone + to-infinitive'.
was · had · would · if · to · could · were · whether
  1. Sosthène Hugues Ngono told the reporter that the park in Essos where he used to clear his head when things felt confused.
  2. He explained that the park flattened in February of the previous year and was now a private car park.
  3. Jean-Baptiste Tchengang said that he trained or helped about 300 people since 2022.
  4. He added that ten of them built gardens on abandoned plots.
  5. A journalist asked the gardener thousands of courtyard gardens could offset the loss of whole hillsides.
  6. Critics wondered who benefit if ministers cut the 2030 electric-sales target from 80% to 50%.
3COLLOCATIONS
Match the verb on the left with the noun phrase it best collocates with on the right.
  1. keep pace with
  2. offset
  3. weigh
  4. stage
  5. take root
4CRITICAL THINKING
All three stories describe a small, local act (a garden, a lightbulb switched off, a driver's saving) set against a much larger system. Which of the three do you think shows the clearest gap between what individuals can do and what only institutions can achieve, and why? Consider also who is left out of the decision-making in each case.
5CREATIVE · HEADLINES
Write a headline for the top story in each of the following styles. One line each, no explanation:
  • TABLOID NEWSPAPER
  • LUXURY MAGAZINE
  • ACTIVIST BLOG
6WRITING
Imagine you are a Corvo resident, a Yaoundé gardener or a British EV driver. Write a short diary entry (about 120 words) describing one ordinary day and how the issue in your article quietly shapes it.
7DEGREES OF EXTREMITY
Complete each ladder from mild to strong.
  • The city has lost some of its trees.→→
  • The new housing is a bit crowded.→→
  • Residents are slightly upset about the park.→→
  • The government's plan is a little disappointing.→→
  • Driving electric is somewhat cheaper than petrol.→→
  • The extra emissions are noticeable.→→
8SPEAKING
  1. Who should pay for planting new trees: governments, developers or residents?
  2. Have you ever lost a place you loved? How did it feel?
  3. Would you accept a blackout in your town to protect animals?
  4. Is it fair to blame ordinary people for building informally?