The rural population close to protected areas is poor in terms of income and in terms of social in-frastructure (access roads, drinking water supply, health, education). This population is depending on forest resources for their livelihood and conservation measures have resulted and will result in income losses. The population does not benefit sufficiently from legal forms of management of forest resources on their own traditional land (National Parks, Forest Management Units, Commu-nity Forests, etc). Capacities of agricultural production and marketing are weak mainly due to lack-ing access roads for transport of inputs and outputs, and insufficient agricultural extension. All this leads to the participation of the rural population in poaching, illegal logging and agricultural en-croachment into permanent forests.
Hence, the core problem of degradation of high-value ecosystems in the South-West Region of Cameroon through uncoordinated and unsustainable use of natural resources still persists and justifies the importance of PSMNR-SWR intervention after Phase I came to an end. The underlying rationale of the programme – conservation of globally important forest ecosystems and endangered species and simultaneous socio-economic development of the population in neighbouring communities, whose livelihood depends largely on natural resources, remains highly relevant.This phase specifically is taking into consideration lesson learnt in the first phase with focus on three core areas of intervention namely: collaborative management of protected areas with surrounding villages; and sustainable production forest management and mediating land-use conflicts.

 

It is foreseen that this phase will face out in June 2017.