Household dependence on forests around lobeke National Park, Cameroon

In this study the average consumption and cash incomes of households living in villages adjoining the Lobeke National Park in Southeast of Cameroon were analysed with particular focus on the extent to which households in the region were dependent on forest products and services. Possible reasons for the dependency of households on forests were identified and tested using logistic regression. A total of eight income portfolios were found to be contributing to the household annual incomes in the studied villages. The contribution of forest products to household income and consumption ranged between 0.10 to 0.82 (mean = 0.49 and sd = 0.18). Forest income contributed 44.44% to the total income of all the households surveyed. The annual average forest income per household was US$ 239.3. A major recommendation was that conservation policies need to be overhauled to take into consideration the importance of forest products in the livelihoods of forest-dependent people.