The Socio-Economic Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Change on the Inhabitants of Mount Bambouto Caldera of the Western Highlands of Cameroon

Abstract

This work assessed the impact of land use and land cover (LULC) change on the socio-economic conditions of the inhabitants in the Mount Bambouto Caldera from 1980-2016. To achieve this, three time series satellite images; Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) (1980), Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM) (2001), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) (2016) scenes were employed to investigate the changes in LULC. The use of satellite images was supplemented with individual interviews, discussions with focus groups and key informants, and direct field observations. Five categories of LULC classes were identified namely: thick woody vegetation (natural forest and oil palms), light vegetation (croplands), savannah (grasslands), buildings (settlements), and bare grounds. The results showed that between 1980 and 2016, croplands, buildings and bare lands increased by 4%, 0.43% and 5.7% respectively while savannah/grassland and natural forest decreased by 4.4% and 5.8% respectively. Household survey revealed soil fertility decline and lack of credit schemes to be major constraints to crop production. Many religious holidays contribute to seasonal food shortages and the community faces a host of socio-economic and institutional challenges. Consequently, majority of households are destitute, live in abject poverty; which is an indication of the need for interventions by government and other development stakeholders to tackle the problems of soil fertility, land use change and food insecurity.