The Interactions of Human Mobility and Farming Systems on Biodiversity and Soil Quality in the Western Highlands of Cameroon

General Discussion and Synthesis

151 General Discussion and Synthesis The responses of the inhabitants of the Western Highlands of Cameroon (WHC) to an increase in population pressure and economic stress have brought about rural-rural mobility, rural-urban commuting, rural-urban migration , urban-rural migration and occupational diversification. The interaction between the human mobility patterns and farming systems, have effected change in the biodiversity and soil quality in the area. This study has made an attempt to bring into focus the interaction between the driving forces of human mobility, the sustainability of the farming systems and what has impacted on the biodiversity and soil quality in the WHC. The demographic pressure of the WHC coupled with the cash crop crises prompted the rural population to seek for alternative ways of making a living. This brought about different types of human mobility. 6 152 6 General Discussion and Synthesis 6.1 What are the driving forces, contributions and categories of human mobility in the study area? My results reveal that a diversification of occupation and income had become widespread in the WHC. One important reason for this was population growth and increased pressure on natural resources. In addition, the difficulties encountered by small-scale farmers in their struggle to make a living out of agriculture in an already risk-prone environment, had been exacerbated by economic reform and this had become an important ‘push’ factor for diversification . Young men in the WHC had found an occupational niche by offering transport services on motorbikes from the tarmac road and other pick-up points to the hinterlands. Return migration had injected financial resources and new skills into the local economy, but it was generally limited and varied between locations, depending on factors such as success in accumulating capital and skills, which in turn depended largely on educational levels and the income secured while away; the infrastructure and opportunities in home areas and access to local assets such as land, encouraged investment but also provided a safety net to migrants. In this my results support the views of Tacoli (2002) who stated that the contributions made by migrants when urban-rural migration takes place need to be better recognised and supported, as does their need for a safety net, given the often high levels of insecurity in urban labour markets.These migrants bring about significant diversification in the rural environment. Diversification is a key element in the livelihood strategies of most rural inhabitants and education is the most important single factor in determining whether diversification can start an accumulation process, or whether it is part of a survival strategy (Tacoli, 2002). Education would equally influence the understanding and adoption of technological packages. Substantial information was obtained in order to provide adequate answers about the driving forces and their contributionto the different types of mobility found in the study area. While the low earnings from coffee production and demographic pressure were diagnosed as the most important driving forces on human mobility in the study area, various types of mobility and cropping systems were established as responses to alleviating problems and improvingreturns for the farmer. My research results show that there had been a transformationin the intra-rural mobility trends since the drop in the price of coffee on the international market in the early 90s. During the coffee boom-years, farm plots that were far from the homesteads were dedicated to subsistence crop production mostly through shifting cultivation or long fallow systems. However the end of the coffee boom and demographic pressure orchestrated rural-rural mobility for the production of vegetable crops that had become the replacement cash crops. As a result, farmers had started commuting to designated areas suitable for the cultivation of the vegetable cash crops and 153 6.1 What are the driving forces, contributions and categories of human mobility? the shifting cultivation system subsequently gave way to intensive off-farm input systems. These results are in accordance with the observations of Potts (2006) who postulated that migration patterns can be a sensitive indicator of the spatial expression of economic and social variations in a region or a country . Increasing population and economic stress have acted as driving forces to reshape the lives of the farmers of the WHC. Results obtained from this work also demonstrated that better access to local assets (such as having access to farm plots at the high altitudes with a water supply) reduced the need for rural-urban migration...