**6. Conclusions**

**Figure 5.** Total carbon stock and carbon stock in the case study council forests after RIL and conventional logging.

88 Tropical Forests - The Challenges of Maintaining Ecosystem Services while Managing the Landscape

Reforestation constitutes another possible approach that could be employed to improve carbon stocks within Cameroon's council forests. Under the definitions of the Marrakesh Accords, reforestation refers to the direct human-induced conversion of nonforested land to forested land through planting, seeding, and/or the human-induced promotion of natural seed sources, on land that was forested but that has been converted to nonforested land [26]. Simply put, reforestation is planting trees or other activities geared towards the expansion of forest cover in general, though with particular reference to natural forest succession [27], or areas cleared

Climate change mitigation through carbon sequestration is usually the primary benefit of reforestation as efforts to increase terrestrial carbon sequestration are based on the premise that reforestation adds to the planet's net carbon storage and helps moderate global warming by slowing the growth of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. However, there are many other ecological benefits of reforestation outside of carbon sequestration. Reforestation of degraded lands provides restoration of forest ecosystem goods and services (especially forest-based carbon), biodiversity conservation, improved air and water quality as well as improved soil

Accountability, transparency, and jail terms for defaulters should be more aggressively promoted and applied around managing forest resources and ensuring that the proceeds derived from these economic activities are used to enhance the overall objectives of both the

of forests through timber harvesting and/or natural disaster.

fertility, structure and sustainability [27], and habitats for wildlife.

**5.3. Promotion of good governance in order to combat illegal logging**

**5.2. Reforestation**

This chapter attempts to analyze council forest landscapes in Cameroon in terms of their socioeconomic and climate change mitigation potentials. The chapter posits that while there are some strengths and opportunities associated with these landscapes, they are fraught with glaring weaknesses as well as threats which could undermine importance services that they provide. Thus, it is argued that promoting good governance in order to combat illegal logging, improving capacity and data, facilitating easy access to credit schemes, developing alternative livelihood projects, RIL, reforestation, and proper enforcement of wildlife laws are keys to advancing the sustainable management of these landscapes. Advances on these main recommendations will help in improving the contributions of council forest landscapes to desired sustainable development pathways. Finally, lessons learned from this study could be replicated to other countries in West Africa (like Liberia) where the Guinean forest block are significant for their rich biodiversity.
