Management of High Conservation Value in Forest Management Units of Cameroon: Case of 1025 Forest Concession

Abstract

The forests of South-Cameroon are a home to significant biological and cultural diversity and appear to be among the most threatened in the Congo Basin. Fortunately, the management process for High Conservation Value forest (HCVF) constitutes an alternative for the preservation of this biodiversity. The study was inspired by the ProForest guide to help optimize the integration of ecological and social values within the forest concession 1025. To do this, participatory mapping, focus groups and field observations were used to identify the high social values contained in the forest concession. Consultation of forest management plan, land use plan and inventory documents as well as field observations led to the identification of high ecological values. After evaluation of the potential threats on the attributes of high conservation values, management measures were proposed to improve/maintain the high conservation values identified. The forest concession 1025 contains six categories of high conservation values with a variety of attributes. Of the four categories of high ecological conservation values identified, only category 2 relative to the large intact forests of global/regional importance seems not to be unanimous because of the typology of the Congo Basin forests. On the other hand, the high values of social conservation, with few exceptions, are similar from one study to another. This similarity is related to almost homogeneous socio-cultural practices in the sub-region. The overlapping of incompatible activities in the massive forest offers an uncertain outcome to the implementation of the management process of forest with high conservation values. A revision of the land-use plan would be a primer to the ownership of the concept of forests at high conservation values in the Forest Management Unit (FMU) 1025.