Project Description

Community Forestry

Practical forest management in the Cameroon Mountains includes some level of exploitation of natural resources and one of the challenges is to evaluate the relative impacts of each activity on biodiversity in the forests. Some parts of the community forests are usually protected, with no or very limited use by the community, whereas income generating activities like bee keeping, harvesting of medicinal plants and fire wood collection are allowed, under conditions, in other parts of the forest. Disputes arise among members of the community about hunting, collecting medicinal plants and cattle grazing in the forests. If the impact of all these activities on the forest ecosystem as a whole and biodiversity are better known and understood, it will be easier for the local NGOs to advise local communities on appropriate management and regulation of their forests.

Environmental Impact assessment

The instrument of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is aimed to predict the social and environmental impacts of human activities on the environment. WHINCONET has initiated a project with financial support from the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) to use EIA to evaluate the relative impacts of different aspects of community forestry on biodiversity in the Cameroon Mountains. This will help in finding a balance between different forms of income generating activities without disrupting the globally important, unique and highly vulnerable biodiversity in the Cameroon Mountains.

Goals of the project

The main goal of the project is to provide practical support to develop the capacity of NGOs to integrate biodiversity and impact assessment in community forestry management in the forests in the Cameroon Mountains. Suitable biodiversity indicators and values for use in conducting impact assessments of community forestry in these forests are developed. NGOs are trained on Impact Assessment as a tool in regulating activities and management in and around the community forests. As a result of the project, NGOs should be able to assist FMIs and other stakeholders to answer questions like

• What is the relative impact of the different activities on the forest ecosystem as a whole and, specifically unique biodiversity indicators?
• What mitigating or alternative methods can be applied to reduce negative impacts of the activities on the ecosystem?
• What type of management should be implemented by who, to allow both sustainable income generating activities, without a sustained negative impact on biodiversity?