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

MINFOF, research or training institutions, conservation projects and non-governmentalorganisations working on ecological monitoring. The information collected was analysedand used in the drafting of a report that was submitted in several steps of validations.Before presenting the methodological guide, the introductory parts of the documentreview the conceptual framework, stressing on the definition of key concepts and ecologicalmonitoring systems being implemented in Cameroon. It was noticed that several ecologicalmonitoring systems were drawn up within the framework of conservation projects beingimplemented in some protected areas in Cameroon, in which only some parts are sufficientlydocumented.The areas concerned with this study are mainly wildlife protected areas. They wereclassified in 3 categories: Those with a relatively elaborate ecological monitoring system(e.g. the Campo Ma’an, Benoue, Boumba-Bek, Nki, Mbam and Djerem, Waza, and KorupNational Parks, and the Dja biosphere reserve), those where basic studies have been carriedout but which do not have an ecological monitoring system (e.g the Manenguba, Douala-Edea, Kagwene, Takamanda, Bakossi, Bayang-Mbo and Mengame National Parks), andthose where basic information is absent (e.g. Mbere Valley, Mpem and Djim, Kalamaloué,Mozogo-Gokpro and “Mefou” National Parks, Santchou reserves, Lake Ossa, Kimbi andMount Oku). It can be noticed that all these protected areas have not always received thesame degree of attention from conservation partners.The main ecological monitoring systems being tested in Cameroon have beenpresented in a table, and classified according to the following groups: Vegetation andhabitat, wild animal species, environmental conditions and human factors. This section endswith an analysis of the systems being tested and sorts out priority actions for ecologicalmonitoring in Cameroon – the need to consider the impact of activities being carried out onbiodiversity conservation as well as the well-being of communities. Very few conservationprogrammes deal with monitoring socio-economic trends to ensure their correlation with theevolution of biological potentials, which should preoccupy the “conservators” in future.Otherwise, the principle of community participation will be questionable. The ecologicalmonitoring system must lay emphasis on the spatio-temporal dynamics of large animals,which are the component of biodiversity most threatened by human activity (hunting) andmost sensitive to the various degradations of natural habitats.There is a discrepancy between the aim of gathering available documentation onCameroon protected areas and the rest of findings in this study and will be presented as anindex in a separate volume. It should be noted, however, that 1780 references werecatalogued in sixteen sites that were visited during this study.The main chapter covers the methodological guide. It is arranged in a way as toregroup the required elements to present the natural factors of the milieu, emphasizing onclimatic factors, a monitoring of the vegetation and fauna, a presentation of anthropogenicfactors of the milieu while emphasizing not only on the monitoring of activities of resourcesexploitation but also on a follow-up of the management of protected areas. In each part, themeasured parameters and their importance are highlighted, followed by a section on how tomeasure them, and finally, some tools and necessary resources for monitoring theseparameters are presented. Among other tools, the document stresses on chart modelsrequired for data collection, apparatuses and instruments for data collection in the field and,devices and programmes for treating specific data. The monitoring of animal species is thebasis for ecological monitoring programmes applicable in protected areas (bio-monitoring).It is based on various methods for sampling animal species. Data are processed to producemaps and other useful information. For the monitoring of large and medium-sized mammals,xii