Motivations and Challenges of Sustaining Forest Ecosystem Services Through Community Forest Stewardship in Fako Division Southwest Region Cameroon

Abstract

The Ecosystem Services (ES) approach promotes the integration of local communities into natural resource management to enhance both livelihood and conservation outcomes. However, despite its importance, Community Forest Stewardship (CFS) which is a vital component of conservation has not been given adequate attention for the past 3 decades. The article is focused on how CFS has helped in sustaining forest ecosystem services through their motivations and challenges that will guide putting in place suitable adaptation plans and policy recommendations to ensure the continuous flow of ES. The study adopted a mixed research design methodology. Relevant data was obtained from 160 respondents selected randomly and also from community stewards within the Etinde and Bakingili Community Forest (CF) through questionnaires, interviews and Focus group discussions. The study made use of the Kruskal Wallis H test and Mann Whitney test to rank the importance of the constitutive items within the 4 categories of ES. The principal component analysis and scree plot were used to categorize constitutive items identified by respondents under different categories of motivations and challenges. and Fisher’s test statistics to analyse the 16 capacity indicators. Results show that supporting ecosystem services and regulating ecosystem services were significantly identified (with 113 and 102 mean counts respectively) and constructed than cultural and provisioning ecosystem services (54 and 83 mean count respectively). More so, socio-economic variables - level of education, income range and household size influenced the perception and valuing of provisioning ES, cultural ES and regulating ES. Community forest stewards are more motivated by the community and economic dimensions of motivations although the environment still remain salient. Challenges, capacity and actions of community forest stewardship organisations were identified. As such, there is the need of training, sensitization, and community education on the different categories of Es and how they can be sustainably managed to achieve both conservation and livelihood development objectives of community forestry.

Citation

Patience UA, Atembehnkeng FK, Yengeh MJC. Motivations and Challenges of Sustaining Forest Ecosystem Services Through Community Forest Stewardship in Fako Division Southwest Region Cameroon. WebLog J Environ Sci. wjets.2026. j2402. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23878933