Land Cover and Land Use Dynamics in Cameroon’s Forest-Savanna Transition Zone: Implications for the Conservation and Sustainable Management of the Minta Communal Forest
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11137/1982-3908_2026_49_70058Keywords:
Sustainable management, Municipalities, Degraded areasAbstract
Sustainable management of communal forests remains a challenge for Cameroonian municipalities due to the inadequacy of available data reflecting the current reality of these forests. For this reason, several communal forests, particularly those in the forest-savanna transition zone, do not always benefit from adequate management measures. This study therefore set out to assess the spatial and temporal dynamics of land cover and land use in the Minta communal forest in order to provide useful information for decision-making on the sustainable management of its communal forest. The supervised classification was performed using Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM), Thematic Mapper (TM), and Operational Land Imager (OLI) satellite images based on a diachronic approach for land cover mapping for 2000, 2010, and 2021. The results show that seven types of land cover and land use were identified, namely: mature forests, secondary forests, swamp forests, fallow land, savannas, farms, and bare Land. Image classification was satisfactory, with overall accuracy and Kappa indices exceeding 70% and 80%, respectively, during the periods 2000–2010, 2010–2021, and 2000–2021 for the study area. Transition matrices showed a decline of approximately 20% of mature forests in favor of secondary forests, fallow land, farms and bare Land. Consequently from 2000 to 2021, mature forests had a deforestation rate of 0.67% and a degradation rate of 5.48%. These results are the combined effect of drivers such as logging, mining, agriculture, livestock farming, and climate change. In response to these threats, three sustainable management options are recommended to the municipality of Minta: (1) complete conservation of less degraded areas; (2) reforestation/restoration of highly degraded areas; (3) production of a land zoning plan for their forest cover, assigning each area an economic, social, or ecological function in order to meet expectations related to ecosystem sustainability.
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