Perceptions of ecosystem services provided by tropical forests to local populations in Cameroon

Abstract

In Central Africa, local populations are deeply dependent on tropical forests, which provide numerous ecosystem services (ES). For the first time in Central Africa, we assessed the perceptions of ES provided by tropical forests to local populations, considering three land allocation types: a protected area, a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)certified logging concession, and three community forests. We conducted a questionnaire survey with 225 forest stakeholders in southeastern Cameroon, combining an open-ended question and 16 directed questions to evaluate the perceptions of ES significance and abundance, respectively. The ES most frequently reported as significant were provisioning (93% of respondents) and cultural & amenity services (68%), whereas regulating services were less mentioned (16%). Bushmeat provision was the only ES perceived as highly significant but not very abundant. There were slight variations of perceptions among forest land allocation types and respondents, suggesting a relative homogeneity in ES abundance. For further integrative ES assessment, we suggest quantifying ES with complementary ecological and economic approaches, such as meat provision, recreation, tourism, timber provision, spiritual experience, firewood provision, water quality regulation, and inspiration for culture. We also give three concrete recommendations for forest management, the most urgent being to provide sources of protein alternative to bushmeat.

Quantifying the Use of Forest Ecosystem Services by Local Populations in Southeastern Cameroon

“…ES are defined as the contributions of ecosystems to human well-being [4]. Classically, ES are divided into provisioning, regulating, and cultural services [5], provisioning and cultural services being directly and daily used by people depending on the forests, especially in developing countries [6,7].…”

“…In the periphery of Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, several cultural services were assessed using participatory approaches, including cultural heritage, landscape aesthetics, social interaction, spiritual or religious experience, and intrinsic value [26]. In southeastern Cameroon, cultural heritage and identity, inspiration for culture and art, spiritual experience, opportunities for recreation and tourism, and education were all recognized important by rural populations [7]. The management of ecosystems can influence the provision of cultural services [26], on which human well-being directly depends [27,28].…”

“…In the Dja area (Cameroon), the perceptions of ES supplied by tropical forests to local populations have been quantified among three adjacent forest allocations largely represented in Central Africa: a protected area, a logging concession, and community forests [7]. The authors recommended further investigation on the use of some ES, in particular bushmeat, for which the supply did not meet the demand, and firewood and timber provision, as well as cultural services, for which the perceptions were the most variable and controversial, and this will need complementary social and biophysical assessment approaches.…”

“…and regulating services were not considered as a high priority for integrated ES assessment. Indeed, perceptions of the supply of these ES were highly homogenous among respondents and were then less controversial among different forest areas [7]. The identification of ES determinants is also crucial in order to design sustainable planning strategies, disentangling the roles of forest management [16,27,45], local environment [46,47], and socio-demography [48,49].…”

“…Specifically, we aimed to: (i) quantify and map the use of important provisioning and cultural ES by local populations; (ii) identify the influence of potential socio-demographic determinants of ES use at the household scale; (iii) identify the influence of potential determinants of ES use at the village scale, namely total population size, forest allocations, and deforestation rate; (iv) assess the sustainability of the consumption of provisioning services. Because of their importance for local populations [7], we focused on three provisioning services (bushmeat, firewood, timber) and five cultural services (cultural heritage and identity, inspiration for culture and art, spiritual experience, recreation, and education), by combining social and biophysical assessment approaches. In order to engage local communities for the political legitimacy of assessment findings [50], and to promote the social inclusiveness [26,51], we used participatory approaches to analyze the daily use of ES by local populations.…”