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Title From Farmers to Loggers: The Role of Shifting Cultivation Landscapes in Timber Production in Cameroon
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1885/77489
Date 2013
Author(s) Robiglio, Valentina; Lescuyer, Guillaume; Cerutti, Paolo
Abstract This article focuses on timber sourced from the agricultural areas in the shifting cultivation landscapes of the Central Region of Cameroon. Data about volumes marketed in urban centres, harvesting operations and on-farm timber management are used to discuss the ecological impact of small-scale logging and its sustainability in the long term. An opportunistic association exists between small-scale logging and agricultural land uses, determined mostly by the abundance of valuable species in fallows and on cocoa farms, their easy accessibility and the low price of farmland timber. Farmers apply various strategies to the management of tree resources in fallows and cocoa agroforests, with most felling authorized in fallows and most trees preserved on the cocoa farms. With current agricultural expansion and intensification trends associated with small-scale logging, timber resources on rural land are at risk of depletion with direct consequences for domestic timber supply and the thousands of livelihoods it sustains. Marketing and regulatory changes are needed to encourage the integration of timber production in agricultural management systems.
Subject(s) Keywords: agricultural land; agricultural management; agroforestry; cocoa; cultivation; forestry production; landscape; logging (timber); timber; timber market; Cameroon; Theobroma cacao Cocoa agroforests; Domestic timber sector; Fallow management; Farmers' livelihoods; On-farm timber; Small-scale logging
Publisher Springer
Type of publication Journal article
Source Small-scale Forestry
Identifier 1873-7617; 10.1007/s11842-012-9205-3
Repository Canberra - Australian National University
Added to C-A: 2018-11-22;12:48:33