Impact of macroeconomic change on deforestation in south Cameroon: integration of household survey and remotely-sensed data.

摘要

The objective of this paper is to better understand the causes and processes of land use/land cover changes since the 1970s in the forest zone of the East Province of Cameroon. This is achieved by combining information from an extensive socioeconomic household survey covering 552 households in 33 villages and time series of medium spatial resolution remote sensing data. The analyses were carried out against a backdrop of dramatic macroeconomic change. From the late 1970s to 1985, Cameroon was a booming economy. Beginning in 1985 it experienced a devastating economic crisis, a structural adjustment programme in 1989 and, in January 1994, a drastic revaluation of its currency. The research results demonstrate that macroeconomic changes affecting Cameroon have played a fundamental role in the way land use practices influence the forest cover. The results show that the annual rate of deforestation increased after the economic crisis as compared to the previous period. The household survey informationenables identification of the causal relationships and the processes of land use and land-cover changes. Observations reveal that the beginning of the economic crisis (1986) is associated in time with a strong increase of the deforestation rate relatedto population growth, increased marketing of food crops, modification of farming systems, and colonization of new agricultural areas in remote forest zones.