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Understanding Community Participation in Tree Planting and Management in Deforested Areas in Cameroon’s Western Highlands

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Abstract

Deforestation and forest degradation continue to take place at alarming rates in Africa despite global net forest loss reductions. This is prompting large-scale forest restoration involving community volunteers to prevent, halt and reverse the loss of biodiversity for the sustainable development of forest landscapes in Africa. The study explored the motivations, challenges, barriers and negotiation strategies of community volunteers in ecosystem restoration and conservation initiatives in Cameroon’s Western Highlands (Mount Bamboutos landscape), given that many such interventions are not achieving desired targets and goals. A total of 134 respondents involving farmers and local implementing NGO workers were interviewed, using semi-structured open-ended questionnaires. One focus group discussion was held with paramount traditional rulers to assess the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the community-led ecosystem restoration and conservation initiative. The principal components analysis with oblique (Direct oblimin) rotation was used to reduce the number of constitutive items in each dimension of motivation, challenge and barrier to community participation. Linear regression analysis was used to examine how the different dimensions of motivations, challenges and barriers influence community participation. Community participation was initially driven more by environmental motivations given the highly deforested and degraded Mount Bamboutos landscape, but later on driven more by economic and community motivations. Social factors were least expressed and non-significant predictors of participation. Community participation was primarily limited by management, financial, psychological, personal, and information challenges and barriers. Providing financial incentives to cover daily subsistence costs of food and transport was a key negotiation strategy that increased community participation. Conservation organisations should capitalise on environment, community and social motivational appeals during community education and awareness campaigns to increase voluntary community participation. The local knowledge on ecosystem restoration and conservation motivations, challenges, barriers, negotiation strategies, recommendations and SWOT analysis provide relevant baseline information for environment management decision-makers in Cameroon and other Sub-Saharan African countries.

Highlights

  • Community participation was initially driven mainly by environmental factors.

  • Community participation was later on driven more by economic and community motives.

  • Social factors were least frequently expressed and non-significant predictors of participation.

  • Financial, management and psychological challenges and barriers mainly limited participation.

  • Providing financial incentives to cover daily subsistence costs of food and transport increased participation.

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Acknowledgements

The researcher is grateful for the contributions of the Mount Bamboutos Initiative (MBI) project nursery and tree planting technicians, local partner community-based organisations, and project field staff for their assistance in facilitating the field data collection, and to the farmers for their voluntary participation in the interviews and open-ended questionnaire survey. We acknowledge that the MBI ecosystem restoration initiative was conceived and implemented by the Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF), based in Buea, Cameroon and the International Tree Foundation (ITF), based in the UK. We further acknowledge that the initiative was jointly funded by the Darwin Initiative and TreeSisters, UK, in a project titled “Landscapes and Livelihoods: Participatory Restoration of the Mt Bamboutos Ecosystem”, Cameroon, with funding number is 2018/CAM/002.

Author Contributions

Ewane BE conceived and wrote the entire manuscript in all its sections.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Faculty of Social and Management Sciences, University of Buea, P.O. BOX 63, Buea, Southwest region, Cameroon

    Ewane Basil Ewane

  2. Department of Forest Resources, College of Natural Resources, Yeungnam University, 280 Daehak-ro, Gyeongsan-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do, 712-749, South Korea

    Ewane Basil Ewane

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Correspondence to Ewane Basil Ewane.

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Ewane, E.B. Understanding Community Participation in Tree Planting and Management in Deforested Areas in Cameroon’s Western Highlands. Environmental Management 73, 274–291 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01902-0

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