Rapport final suivi ecologique - Impact monitoring of Forest ...

EXECUTIVE SOMMARYApplied research and ecological monitoring can significantly contribute to ensure asustainable management of natural resources in and around Protected Areas. They are part ofthe key programmes of the management under implementation in Cameroon and arerecommended as such in instructions for the drawing up of all other management plans. Theneed to monitor environmental variations has become a matter of great importance, given theever growing pressure of human activities on environmental natural resources. Thesepressures may cause the extinction of some species, unless elaborate conservationprogrammes are implemented. Biodiversity conservation programmes must therefore, seekto monitor or assess the impacts of recorded pressures or progress. For this reason,conservation programmes, whether funded by projects or not, must have tools or indicatorsthat enable environmental monitoring. Ecological monitoring helps in collecting andanalysing data that enable informed decision-making on the management of Protected Areas.Cameroon protected areas display a stark contrast between the level of awareness onresources under conservation or to be conserved, and the activities that are carried out inthem. Some of them do not have records of important studies and there is very littleinformation about their biological and ecological value. In others, the ecological monitoringis reduced to sporadic biological sample surveys. There are others which, however, have arelatively elaborate system with various types of data that are collected and published atrelatively stable intervals.Building on these points, a system for ecological data collection will be developed,that will be applicable to all protected areas in Cameroon, or that will harness themanagement of all protected areas in Cameroon. This is a difficult task, because protectedareas in Cameroon are located within different ecosystems and as such, the methods of datacollection will tend to differ. Finally, there are several institutions or organisations thatsupport the management of protected areas, and who sometimes use different methods, evenwithin the same geographical locations. The question remains: how then do we blend thesedifferent approaches?Each team responsible for managing biodiversity resources or protected areas inCameroon must of necessity have an ecological monitoring system that enables them tobetter organise their activities and guarantee sustainability. So, the system must, among otherthings, provide information on the habitat, large animals, small and medium-sized mammals,cluster groups such as birds, fishes, reptiles, species that attract tourists, etc. Under theseconditions, the necessary resources are not always mobilised, and it is always difficult todecide where to start, given the limited resources.This study aims at improving on knowledge and the management of natural resourcesthrough environmental monitoring programmes. The study has five specific objectives,namely: i) To carry out a literature review in the domain of fauna and protected areas; ii)check off and analyse ecological monitoring systems already being implemented in protectedareas in a bid to help put in place other systems in the remaining protected areas; iii) developa methodological guide for ecological monitoring data collection; iv) suggest necessarytools/instruments for ecological monitoring; v) propose an implementation strategy forecological monitoring.The study was carried out in different stages, including a bibliographical research andfield trips to protected areas where significant achievements have been registered in terms ofecological monitoring. These field trips covered the 10 Regional Delegations of MINFOF, aswell as some Divisional Delegations. Finally, talks were organised with resource persons inxi