TROPFOMS, a decision support model for sustainabele management of south Cameroon's rainforests

Natural forests play an important role in the economy of Cameroon, at both the national and local levels. Unfortunately, there is still a general sense that in Cameroon, like in most tropical countries, forests are not managed in a sustainable way. The poor forest management practices, which still prevail in Cameroon, result from both an inadequate institutional context and insufficient scientific and technical knowledge. For the last few decades important research efforts have been made in tropical forestry. However, these efforts concentrate mostly on developing silvicultural systems and more and more on predicting growth and yield of forest stands. Research on supporting decision-making for forest has been negligible in tropical forestry. The research presented here confronts the problem of how to assist decision-making in tropical forest management using the best available scientific information gathered in different disciplines. The specific objectives of the research were:To design a system for supporting decision-making with respect to the management of tropical forests.To assess the effects of different management options on the economic returns of the logging enterprise as well as on the structure of the forest at steady state.To provide insights into the trade off between income generation through sustainable timber harvesting and the use of the forest by the local population on the one hand, and between income generation through sustainable timber production and nature conservation on the other hand.To derive recommendations for conversion of the current forest at the Tropenbos Cameroon Programme (TCP) research site into a steady state forest.To suggest and evaluate adaptations of existing strategies aimed at sustainable management of the tropical moist forest in south Cameroon.A methodological tool was developed to support decision making with respect to tropical forest management. The system was given the acronym of TROPFOMS (TROPical Forest Management