The question had weighed on Dr. Aristide Kamla for years as he protected African manatees in Cameroon’s Lake Ossa.  “We protect the manatee in its natural habitat,” he said during a meeting in September 2025, “but what if we are presented with a manatee stranded at the shore of a river or a lake. What do we do with it?” As president of the African Marine Conservation Organization (AMCO), one of WCN’s newest Partners, Aristide has poured his energy into protecting this vital landscape, home to one of Central Africa’s most important populations of African manatees. But he understood that these manatees needed more than habitat protection alone. They needed a place to recover from injury or stranding. That understanding drove AMCO to reach a historic conservation milestone in 2025: creating Africa’s first manatee rehabilitation center.

Lake Ossa is a designated wildlife reserve, yet growing pressures have increased the likelihood that manatees may be injured, weakened, or stranded. With conditions in the lake making survival more difficult, conservationists must determine how to help when an individual animal can no longer recover on its own. AMCO’s new rehabilitation center is designed as a place of care, recovery, and second chances. Scheduled for completion in 2030, it will provide emergency support to manatees that are injured or too weak to survive independently, returning them to the wild once they recover.

While protecting habitats remains essential, rescue and rehabilitation offer immediate care when individual animals need help most. Together, these approaches create a more complete and compassionate conservation response.

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It is very hard to observe manatees in the wild as they live in murky water. The rehab center will give local communities the opportunity to observe the African manatee in the wild.

The timing is especially meaningful. In early 2026, AMCO will lead the first live capture, tagging, and health assessment of African manatees in Central Africa. This landmark effort will provide critical health data and inform conservation strategies for the species.

Beyond emergency care, the rehabilitation center will also serve as a space for learning and research where students, scientists, and local communities can deepen their understanding of manatees and freshwater ecosystems.

Through AMCO’s rehabilitation center, Aristide’s long-standing question finally has an answer: when a manatee needs help, there is now a place ready to provide it.