Integrating Wildlife Conservation into the Management of Cameroon’s Cacao Agricultural Landscapes

Although agriculture is often listed as a major threat to tropical biodiversity conservation, researchers are starting to rethink this view by examining traditional forest gardens that have been adapted for modern crops like coffee and cacao. These unique farming systems incorporate habitat for birds and other biodiversity that may make them a useful addition to integrated conservation strategies. Ensuring the survival of wildlife in human-dominated landscapes, which surround and connect intact forest reserves, may help maintain the ecological processes that keep these forests healthy. In particular, avian seed dispersers are known to require large home-range areas to provide adequate food resources throughout the annual flowering and fruiting cycle. In recent years, the Center for Tropical Research (CTR) researchers have shown that many of these large-bodied frugivores, particularly hornbills, move significant distances outside of reserve areas to track available fruit resources. These movements provide the opportunity for long-distance seed dispersal events that are important for maintaining genetic connectivity of valuable forest tree species. They also highlight the critical role that managed forested landscapes outside of reserves may play in maintaining healthy populations of seed dispersers inside forest reserves.