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Diversity of plants in cocoa agroforests in the humid forest zone of Southern Cameroon

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Abstract

In the humid forest zone of Southern Cameroon, farmers generally associate cocoa with native and exotic trees in complex agroforestry systems. Despite the socio-economic and ecological importance of these systems, few studies have investigated their plant composition. We investigated tree composition of cocoa agroforests along a gradient of market access, population density and resource use intensity in the humid forest zone of southern Cameroon, comprising (i) the sub-region of Yaoundé, (ii) the sub-region of Mbalmayo, and (iii) the sub-region of Ebolowa. Market access, population density and resource use intensity all decreased from the first to the third sub-region. We quantified the diversity of tree species associated with cocoa within individual agroforests, among agroforests in the same region, and among the three sub-regions, and classified the tree species according to their main uses. A total of 9.1 ha belonging to 60 cocoa agroforests were inventoried in 12 villages. We encountered a total of 206 tree species with an average of 21 tree species per agroforest. In the more urbanized area around Yaoundé, agroforests were less diverse than in the other sub-regions. In all of the agroforests, food producing tree species tended to be more frequent than other species. Two thirds of the food trees were native forest species and one third was introduced. From Ebolowa to Yaoundé, the density of food producing trees doubled and the density of exotic food-producing species increased relative to native species. Some local species producing high-value non-timber forest products were found in the agroforests, but their density was far lower than that of exotic tree species. The agroforests also provide medicine, charcoal and other products for household consumption and sale. We conclude that unless there are specific efforts to promote local forest tree species in cocoa agroforests, these will progressively lose importance with increasing market access, population pressure and land use intensity.

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Acknowledgement

This research was funded by International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Sustainable Tree Crops Program, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst and Mars Inc. We thank Goetz Schroth, Celia Harvey and Robert Nasi and an anonymous referee for their comments on earlier versions of the paper. Louis Zapfack and Bonaventure Sonke of the University of Yaoundé I, and Paul Mezili and Anacletus Koufani of the National Herbarium in Yaoundé helped in tree species identification.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Humid Forest Ecoregional Center (IITA-HFC), P.O. Box 2008, Messa, Yaounde, Cameroon

    Denis J. Sonwa & Stephan F. Weise

  2. Department of Plant Biology, University of Yaoundé I, P.O. Box 812, Yaounde, Cameroon

    Bernard A. Nkongmeneck

  3. Institut de Recherche Agricole pour le Développement (IRAD), B.P. 2067, Yaounde, Cameroon

    Maturin Tchatat

  4. Agricultural Sciences Division, The Rockefeller Foundation, 420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10018-2702, USA

    Akin A. Adesina

  5. Institute of Horticulture, University of Bonn, Auf-dem-Huegel 6, 53121, Bonn, Germany

    Marc J. J. Janssens

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  1. Denis J. Sonwa
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Correspondence to Denis J. Sonwa.

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Sonwa, D.J., Nkongmeneck, B.A., Weise, S.F. et al. Diversity of plants in cocoa agroforests in the humid forest zone of Southern Cameroon. Biodivers Conserv 16, 2385–2400 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-007-9187-1

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