Perceptions of climate change and local responses on livelihoods : the case of people around the Mambioko community forest

Abstract

Forest provides services, directly linked to micro and macro environment, water and soil resources, plants and animals' diversity, food production and security and energy resources. This study contributes to other studies and growing literature on climate change impacts and adaptation strategies in the Congo Basin forest, particularly Cameroon's forest region. Mambioko has a four-season climate, with annual precipitation of 2000–3000 mm and temperature variations of 21.8–30.8 ◦C, most of its agriculture is rainfed. It has an evergreen or semi-deciduous rainforest corresponds to the ""humid"" and "low- and medium-altitude sub-humid" eco-floristic zones. This study is carried out to identify and assess climate change impacts on the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities in Mambioko community forest in Cameroon. Primary data were collected from 85 households; key informants, and focus group discussions and were supplemented with secondary data from a desk review of relevant literature. The study shows that climate change impacts the major livelihood activities of forest-dependent communities through prolonged drought, erratic rainfall patterns, and variability in rainfall intensity. Four of the critical activities of local communities impacted by climate change are agriculture, hunting, fishing and collecting non-timber forest products. People respond to the negative impacts by adopting simple irrigation systems, crop diversification, alternative livelihood activities, and increasing their farm sizes. This study concludes that future interventions to help forest-dependent communities cope with climate change impacts will require pursuing alternative non-climate-dependent livelihood activities, increasing access to climate information, and adopting sustainable agricultural and forest management practices.