The research aims at providing insight into critical factors, which affect the sustainability of management strategies for the tropical moist forest of Southern Cameroon. To obtain such insights, an adequate methodology is needed, capable of generating information about short-term and long-term economic consequences of management options as well as providing information about the future structure of forest stands and of key products utilised both by the local population and the timber industry. Put in the form of a Decision Support System (DSS), the methodology should be an important tool to help in decision-making and monitoring of forest, which is being managed, and might have potentials for utilisation in other tropical countries.The specific objectives of the study are:

• To design a methodology for supporting decisions with respect to the management of natural tropical forests;
• To evaluate and eventually adapt existing criteria for the assessment of sustainability of management strategies of the tropical moist forest of South-Cameroon;
• To provide insight in trade-offs between timber harvesting and uses of forest products by the population;
• To provide insight in different management options and their effects on economic returns of the logging enterprise as well as on the structure of the forest;
• To apply the methodology developed for the management of the Tropenbos-Cameroon Programme (TCP) research site.

A decision support model was developed, but was not transformed in a user friendly software programme.The relation between timber exploitation and uses of NTFPs was analysed and included in the model.The consequences of different management options (cutting cycle, harvest volume, biodiversity conservation and uses of NTFPs) were analysed en included in the model.The conversion of the actual forest on the TCP research site was discussed based on information provided by the model.Management recommendations were formulated.A description of the Cameroonian logging industry was published.

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