Woods Hole Research Center

Tropical Rainforest of Southern Cameroon

Cameroon is home to a diversity of ecological zones and habitats, ranging from a Sahel-like climate in the northern-most part of the country to dense rainforest in the south. Cameroon’s southwestern border is comprised of 402 km of Atlantic coastline where mangrove swamps and coastal forests grade eastward into dense inland tropical forests of the south. Cameroon has one of the highest population density (approximately 32 people/km2) among all Central African countries; it also has one of the highest rates of forest loss. Similar to other Central African nations, the majority of forests are state properties, with less than 6% of the forested area owned and managed by private landowners or communities.

Threats to Conservation

For the last thirty years, Cameroon’s forest domain has been largely controlled by the timber industry, comprised of international and Cameroonian companies that have been important to Cameroon’s national economy since the mid-1980s, when the country’s petroleum resources began to dwindle. Combining this with shifting cultivation and perennial cacao farming, deforestation due to agricultural clearing and forest degradation along major roads and around villages can be significant. Hunting and gathering for the bushmeat trade within degraded closed rainforests and illegal logging further disturbs the ecological functioning of these areas and can preclude proper regeneration and forest recovery.

Today, the forests are highly fragmented and degraded, with pressures from both selective logging and agricultural land clearing. Rapid urbanization in other regions of the country has put a greater demand on the rainforests of Cameroon for timber and fuelwood, as well as food and other non-timber forest products.

In collaboration with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and Central African Regional Program for the Environment (CARPE) partners, the WHRC’s work in Cameroon has focused on mapping deforestation and assessing stocks of aboveground forest biomass. Namely, the project objectives are:

• Understand the process of deforestation in relation to human migration and macro-economics
• Assess the utility of satellite imagery in estimating forest biomass

Project Activities & Products

The document below provides detailed analysis of the progress WHRC scientists have made with the INFORMS project in southern Cameroon.

• Establishing the relationship between rates of deforestation and changes in macro-economics

Future Outlook

The WHRC is currently assisting the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MINEF) of Cameroon and the World Resources Institute (WRI) to promote transparency in the forest sector and identify areas of illegal logging by providing satellite imagery and technical assistance.