Mount Kupe

About

Mount Kupe or Mont Koupé is a plutonic mountain in the Western High Plateau of Cameroon, part of the Cameroon line of volcanoes. It is the highest of the Bakossi Mountains, rising to 2,064 metres (6,772 ft).

The mountain is revered by the local Bakossi people as the home of their ancestral and forest spirits.

Missionaries in the 1890s observed that the mountain had a strong magical reputation, and it still has an important role in beliefs related to ekong, a form of witchcraft.

The mountain used to be forest-covered apart from a few small grassy areas near the summit. Shifting cultivation, logging for timber, felling for fuelwood, growth and expansion of human settlements and establishment of pasture lands have deforested the Bakossi landscape.

All sides of the mountain have been steadily converted to agricultural use.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.