Climate Change and the Management of Natural Systems in Cameroon

10. Climate Change and Management of Protected Areas

213 Chapter Ten Climate Change and Management of Protected Areas Summary There is a growing recognition that natural ecosystems, both large and small, could provide a suite of ecosystem services related to climate change, ranging from protection against immediate physical impacts (rising temperatures, unstable climates, rising sea level) to providing additional insurance against the predicted instability of agriculture, fisheries and water resources. The chapter describes the general ecological and biodiversity features, distribution per biogeographic region of both the biodiversity and protected areas, and appraises the management. It further examines the significance of particular impacts and how protected areas might relief symptoms. The main issues examined include: disaster mitigation covering floods, droughts, landslides, and coastal erosion; fires, biodiversity; water security; the need for rapid crop adaptation; and food security, including the potential of crop and fish stock failure. Finally, some recommendations are made on how protected area management can contribute to the wider efforts at mitigating climate change impacts, and incidentally increase support and resources for management. Key Words: ecological benefits, economic benefits, protected areas, climate change impacts, managing to relief impacts. Introduction Available literature points to the fact that well-designed and managed protected areas may ameliorate some of the problems caused by climate change, with benefits well beyond the boundaries of the protected areas. These potential benefits are predicted from a number of assumptions about the way in which natural ecosystems will respond to changing climate. This chapter seeks to describe the general ecological features and biodiversity potentials, the distribution of protected areas per biogeographic region, appraises the management and outlines some of the known and expected benefits that protected areas offer to resilience against climate change. It identifies the scope for maximizing these benefits. 214 Ecological and Biodiversity Potentials The diversity of relief and latitudinal extent of Cameroon has produced several micro-ecological climates that are reflected by a rich and varied biodiversity. One can encounter several ecological niches over very short distances in the mountain and sub-montane areas. Figure 1 presents the various vegetation zones, and the zone of ancient and recent destruction and disappearance of the rainforest. The overlay of climate change impacts and human impacts has contributed to the savannization of this zone. This also is evidence of the southward shift in vegetation types, that is, the recession of forest types to the advantage of invasive weedy species, graminae, firetolerant and more xerophytic species. Savanna of post forest is spreading their antennae into the once humid forested areas. The transition is from humid forest to tree and shrub savannah, shrub savannah, shrub steppe and grassland savannah. These derivatives, however, reflect the intensity of the human impact on the environment, edaphic factors, altitude, latitude and aspect. Future climate change will exacerbate both the anthropogenic or human-related impacts and the climate-related impacts. This will endanger several ecosystem goods and services. These are important potentials to be protected and sustainably managed. Table 1 and 2 present some wildlife data for the country. The country possesses 297 species of mammals, 848 species of birds. 300 species of amphibians, 9000 species of plants (Gartland, 1992), 29 species of primates and 39 swallowtail butterflies (USAID. 1991’). Some 156 species of plants are endemic (Gartland, 1992). Much of Cameroon’s potential wealth thus lies in its natural resource base. This resource base includes forest, biodiversity, and soil and water resources. This biodiversity provides great potential for eco- tourism, for timber and non-timber forest products. The forests are also of great scientific value for the world community. If we consider only the vertebrates: Cameroon has 2 1% of the fish species found on the African continent, 48% of mammal species. 50% of batrachian species, 54% of bird species and 30 to 75% of reptiles. The presence of these animals is closely linked to the vegetation in which they live. There are many ecosystems in Cameroon. We can distinguish three main Zoographic zones: the forest, Savannah and Sahel zones. Mammals are because of their size the most spectacular element of the wildlife population and contribute enormously to the tourist resource base of 215 the country. There are five families of primates. These are all forest species except for three species of monkeys and one type of bush baby. 34 species of carnivores are present. Although the lion and the jackal are still well represented in the national parks, the panther, cheetah, lynx, bush cat, golden cat, hyena and...