Assessing Cameroon REDD+ Potential through a Participatory Method: Case Study of Akak Community Forest

Abstract

Opportunities to mitigate climate change through the reduction of emissions from deforestation and degradation, forest conservation, enhancement of carbon stocks and sustainable forest management (REDD+) in developing countries, have risen to the top of international climate policy agenda, attracting increasing attention and investment from environmental organizations, development assistance agencies and the business community. Cameroon as other COMIFAC country members is actively participating in REDD+ negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and is currently implementing not less than seven pilot projects which are planned around nearly all of the large forested National Parks in Cameroon, which represents over 7% of the forested land in the country. In this article, we evaluated REDD+ mechanism potential to effectively avoid carbon emissions and identify potential co‐benefits for Akak community forest located near the Campo‐Ma’an National Park in the South region. To do so, we used a Participatory Land Cover Change Mapping (PLCM) methodology with selected members in the community. This approach draws on local knowledge of the community forest, current patterns of forest resource use and information regarding how the community’s choice are expected to affect forest cover to develop a credible baseline scenario. REDD+ policy scenarios developed in this paper indicates a potential of 83, 588.9 tC and 98, 690.9 tC of avoided carbon emissions for the most conservative scenario after 5 years and 10 years respectively of intervention.