Secondary Forest, Roles, Issues, Adaptation and Prospects: The Case of the Bakundu Forest South west Region, Cameroon

Abstract

Secondary forest are prominent features on landscape management in many countries. Their vital roles in providing goods and services are paramount. This study aims to examine the contributions of secondary forest, main issues of forest depletion, and adaptation strategies developed. A recognizance survey was carried out in the month of December to select the study sites and sampling zones. The selection of the villages took into cognizance population, proximity and accessibility to forest. The study areas were stratified into four zones to ensure proper coverage of the respondents. The purposive sampling technique was used whereby farmers, timber operators, hunters, fishermen, traders who have been exploiting the secondary forest for  15 years and above were purposively selected to constitute the population for the study. The determined sample size for the study was 100 respondents. The primary data were collected with the use of questionnaires, field observation and secondary data were obtained from books, journals and publications. Data obtained were analyzed using SPSS and Miscrosoft Excel and results presented as descriptive statistics. The chi square X²   was  used to determine the association amongst variables and across zones.  The results showed that majority of the respondents (68.77%) across the study site were males while the rest (29.23%) were female. Married were (44.79%) and single (44.79%) while divorced were the least (11.46%). Majority of the respondents across the study area are engaged in crop cultivation (75%) as their primary source of income and this was followed by logged timber (12.50%). The main goods, reported were firewood (93.74%), closely followed by timber (66.66%). The services highly cited were watershed (81.25%) and cultural values (58.33%).  The main issues reported were deforestation (72.96%) and biodiversity loss (70.83%). The main strategies of adaptation reported are preservation of cultural values (79.16%), the creation of local farm board committee (97.91%), legal regulation in logging and reforestation (44.79%). This study concludes that proper management of secondary forest can lead to improvement of livelihoods of local communities and help to mitigate climate change.