Land use related dynamics in biodiversity and socio-economy in agroforestry landscapes of the Southwest Region, Cameroon
Current agro-industrial developments in tropical Africa, especially in the context of palm oil, put a high pressure on tropical landscapes. Forested land, outside of protected areas and valuable for agriculture, is threatened to habitat conversion. These landscapes are mostly dominated by agroforestry land use systems which are characterized by social and ecological complexities. In tropical Africa, however, they are poorly understood.
The project aims to assess the values of and the linkage between biodiversity and socio-economy in agroforestry systems and oil palm plantations in a region that is at great risk to be converted to industrial oil palm plantations soon. The project area is located in Southwest Cameroon within the important biodiversity hotspot of the Gulf of Guinea forests and contains mainly small villages, whose inhabitants are smallholders relying on cash-crop and subsidence agriculture embedded into the forested region.