Macro-Economics, Markets and the Humid Forests of Cameroon, 1967-1997

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Periodical article

Title:	Macro-Economics, Markets and the Humid Forests of Cameroon, 1967-1997
Authors:	Ndoye, Ousseynou Kaimowitz, David
Year:	2000
Periodical:	Journal of Modern African Studies
Volume:	38
Issue:	2
Period:	June
Pages:	225-253
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Cameroon
Subjects:	deforestation Economics and Trade Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/161650
Abstract:	This paper analyses how macroeconomic and agricultural policies, market fluctuations and demographic changes influenced land use and timber harvesting in the humid forest zone (HFZ) of Cameroon in four periods between 1967 and 1997 - prior to the oil boom (1967-1976), during the oil boom (1977-1985), under crisis and structural adjustment (1986-1993), and after the 1994 devaluation of the CFA franc. For each period, it examines how these variables influenced cocoa, coffee, food, and agro-industrial crop production and area, and logging. It concludes that government policies, market fluctuations and demographic changes all had a strong impact on forests. Pressure on forests increased after structural adjustment policies were initiated in the mid-1980s. Malthusian reasoning alone cannot explain the level of deforestation and forest degradation in Cameroon. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum.