Sustainable forest management in Cameroon is being plagued with many challenges directly related to key issues in the areas of forest law enforcement and governance. This study used questionnaires to examine the major community livelihood activities undertaken in the SBFR causing deforestation and forest degradation and to explore the localized trigger forces, and their implications for sustainable forest management in Cameroon. The authors found that the rated localized forces triggering indiscriminate human activities in the Southern Bakundu Forest Reserve (SBFR) are scarcity of farmland outside the forest reserve land, population growth, poverty and the more fertile nature of the forest reserve land than the limited, overused, and degraded community farming land. In addition, the authors found that forest monitoring activities in the field by forestry officials were plagued with complicity by some corrupt forestry officials, forces of law and order, administration, local management committee leaders, and disgruntled local population in the apprehension of illegal forest exploiters, besides inadequate resources. The strategies to address the above issues have not been prioritized. Based on the results, this paper argues that the governance failure to prioritize more and better investment in modern agriculture, non-wood domestic cooking energy and reliable rural transport systems, amongst others, including building institutional capacity and physical infrastructure compromises sustainable forest management in Cameroon at both the national and local community levels. In this light, a set of holistic and comprehensive strategic programmes are recommended as the way forward to guaranteeing sustainable development in forest management in Cameroon.

Sediments were collected from four slow vegetation recovery plots, six fast vegetation recovery plots and five unburned plots at a post-fire site on a rainfall event basis and sorted for size distribution. The aim was to evaluate the effects of vegetation cover, soil aggregate stability, slope and rainfall intensity on sediment size distribution, transport selectivity and erosion processes between the burned and unburned treatment plots. Sediment detachment and transport mechanisms and the particle size transport selectivity of the eroded sediment were assessed based on enrichment ratios (ER) and mean weighted diameter (MWD) methods. The most eroded particle size class in all treatment plots was the 125–250μm class and, generally, the percentage of eroded particle sizes did not increase with slope and rainfall intensity. Higher MWD of the eroded sediment was related to a higher percentage of bare soil exposed and gravel content associated with high soil burn severity and soil disaggregation in the slow vegetation recovery plots. The enrichment of finer clay silt particle sizes increased with varying maximum 30-min rainfall intensity (I30) in the slow vegetation recovery plots, and reflected increased aggregate breakdown and transport selectivity, whereas no good relationship was found in the fast vegetation recovery and unburned plots with varying I30. A minimum I30 of <3.56mmh–1 and a maximum of 10.9mmh–1 were found to be the threshold rainfall intensity values necessary for aggregate breakdown and transport of finer particles by both rainsplash and rainflow in the slow vegetation recovery plots, whereas the response was weak in the fast vegetation recovery and unburned plots following varying I30 dominated only by rainsplash transport closer to the plot sediment collector. The results show that higher vegetation cover in the fast vegetation recovery and unburned plots reduces erosive rainfall energy by 5.6- and 17.7-fold respectively, and runoff energy by 6.3- and 21.3-fold respectively, limiting aggregate breakdown and transport selectivity of finer particles compared with the slow vegetation recovery plots.

Fifteen clones of poplars, 2 clones of willows, and yellow poplar were used to evaluate the effects of 5 treatments such as SCBLF (slurry composting and biofiltration liquid fertilizer), general slurry liquid fertilizer, chemical fertilizer, groundwater, and control (no treatment) on vitality, growth performance, and biomass production. Five cuttings for each tree species were planted in 3 replications. After planting cuttings, a coppice was induced by cutting off stems at 10cm above the ground. Data were collected for first growing season and trees were harvested at the end of October. Maximum mortality rate i.e. 96% was recorded in the cuttings treated with groundwater and minimum 92% with control (no treatment). In all tree species, sprouting of stump was not differ significantly among the treatments. Total nitrogen concentrations of leaves and stump sprouts were higher in the treatment of SCBLF than the control, 26.6% and 22.9%, respectively. Biomass production was highest in the stumps treated with chemical fertilizer,

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Abstracts: This study aims to predict the amount of soil loss from Mt. Palgong's small basin, by using influence factors derived from related models, including RUSLE and MUSLE models, and verify the validity of the model through a comparative analysis of the predicted values and measured values, and the results are as follows: The amount of soil loss were greatly affected by LS factor. In comparison with the measured value of the amount of total soil loss, the predicted values by the two models (RUSLE and MUSLE), appeared to be higher than those of the measured soil loss. Predicted values by RUSLE were closer to values of measured soil loss than those of MUSLE. However, coefficient of variation of MUSLE were lower, but two model's coefficient of variation in similar partial patterns in the prediction of soil loss. RUSLE and MUSLE, prediction soil loss models, proved to be appropriate for use in small mountainous basin. To improve accuracy of prediction of soil loss models, more effort should be directed to collect more data on rainfall-runoff interaction and continuous studies to find more detailed influence factors to be used in soil loss model such as RUSLE and MUSLE.