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Naburo, Njohjam Peter
103 009 09 E Bonakanda II hunting | Six huts and one hut behind in this camp.
0416 N village
104 009 09 N Stream (Maliba ma This is an all season stream with a small
0416 E mussingele) waterfall. The only steam flowing on mount
Cameroon
106 009 11 N Bonganjo hunting Hunters of Boganjo village assemble here
04 18 E village after hunting
108 009 10. E Elephant track This is an area where elephant food points
0418 N were found.
109 009 10. E Elephant track Very recent elephant traces
04 18 N
110 009 10 E Elephants Two elephants were seen this point.
04 17 N
One of the herbal preparations produce in Europe to treat prostate problems ( benigh prostatic
hypertrophy and benign prostatic hyperlasia ) is produced from barks of the tree prunus africana..
Prunus Africana has a distribution in Africa and Madagascar. Limited to afromontance forest which
are generally above 1500-2000m attitude. The barks of this medicinal tree exported from Cameroon in
1995 is 1,116 kg by the Groupe Fournier in France owner of Plantecam in Mutengene Fako division
Cameroon. With the high demand of this product, villages around the Mount Cameroon are involved
in the unsustainable exploitation of the tree barks for commercial purposes. The barks extract are used
medically to treat prostate gland hypertrophy has led to the overexploitation of this plant which is a
course for concern due to the exceptional importance of Afromontane forest for plant ,bird and
mammal conservation. For this reason an inventory of the distribution of prunus africana on Mount
Cameroon is necessary.
Remote sensing and GIS could be used to carry the inventory . This inventory is also possible using
GIS overlays by mapping the corresponding growing altitudes 1500-2000m . the possible growing
range of the species is mapped and sample plots randomly selected on the field within the growing
range is extrapolated to the image to have an approximate number of prunus africana stands within the
study area.
This method was used by the author to map the degraded parts of the Bomboko forest reserve using a
GPS receiver. Hunters and farmers were used as resource persons to locate the last plantations location
in the forest reserves. Hunters were very instrumental because they have to go through all farmland
before seeing the wild animals.
6.1.5 METHODOLOGY:
Remote sensing data for forest resource an image mapping of the area with a good spectral resolution
is ordered ground truthing is done with many waypoints recorded with a GPS within the areas of high
prunus africana population. These waypoints are down loaded from the GPS to the computer and
points are created according to geographic locations. The distribution of these points will serve to
interpret the image and the areas of prunus africana can be mapped on —screen from the digital data.
70 INSTITUTIONAL SETUP OF GIS IN CAMEROON
GIS technology in Cameroon is mostly limited to conservation projects and international Ngo's. Apart
from CETELCAF in Yaounde that produces maps based on digitizing and updating. Government
institutions are still backwards in the application of GIS and remote sensing technology.
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B7. Amsterdam 2000. 953