The aim of this project is to contribute to sustainable land use planning in South Cameroon by assessing the botanical diversity of moist forests in the Tropenbos-Cameroon Programme area, and to identify the effects of human activities thereupon. More specifically the objectives are:

• To describe, qualitatively and quantitatively, the botanical diversity of the moist forests in the TCP research area;
• To describe the effects of conventional selective logging and shifting cultivation on botanical diversity;
• To define and identify the conservation value of plant species, communities and areas;
• To design management tools for conservation of botanical diversity in south Cameroon.

The botanical richness and diversity has been described, a.o. in terms of conservation values, which can be used as criteria in land use planning.The effects of selective logging and shifting cultivation on the botanical richness and diversity and the recovery of conservation values has been described.The conservation value of secondary forest has been indicated, which can be used as a criterion for land use planning.Indication for human interference's in historic times in these assumed pristine forests have been presented.Criteria for sound land use planning, which forms the basis of sustainable forest management, has been indicated. One Dutch researcher succesfully defended his PhD thesis based on this project

• Gemerden, B.S. van (2004). Disturbance, diversity and distributions n Central African rain forest. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. (more)
• Gemerden, B.S. van, Olff, H., Parren, M.P.E., Bongers, F. (2003). The pristine rain forest? Remnants of historical human impacts on current tree species composition and diversity. Journal of Biogeography 30:1381-1390
• Gemerden, B.S. van, Shu, G.N. and Olff, H. (2003). Recovery of conservation values in Central African rain forest after logging and shifting cultivation. Biodiversity and Conservation 12: 1553-1570