Biocultural Diversity and Conservation around Mt Cameroon: Traditional knowledge, management and governance in the era of sustainable development

This thesis explores different facets of the interface of traditional management systems around

Mt Cameroon and national and global conservation policy and practice, including the way in

which traditional management systems and 'non-timber forest products' have come to be

studied and understood in the context of human-environment interactions and as a way of

attempting to align economic development and conservation goals. Mt Cameroon has long been

characterized by change and transformation - cultural, economic, ecological, political - all of

which contribute to its extraordinary biological and cultural diversity. A global hotspot for

biodiversity, in recent decades Mt Cameroon has attracted the attention of numerous

conservation programs and donors. My research uses a range of intersecting questions, methods

and approaches to capture the dynamics of social and environmental change at multiple scales,

and over decades. It explores the way in which local-level knowledge and practices are shaped

and mediated between households, communities, local and global markets and extra-local forces

and agents, in particular those linked to livelihood and market-based conservation initiatives. I

argue that a failure to identify the social and environmental dynamics of local groups' forest

management practices, and an incongruously large emphasis on products sold in markets, can

often legitimize the extractive activities that cause biodiversity and forest loss in the first place,

while de-emphasizing locally-driven change and - ironically - glossing over diversity in cultures

and ecosystems in pursuit of uniform, global prescriptions.