Land USE / Land Cover Dynamics in the Western Highlands of Camerroon: The Case of The Bamoun Plateau (1975/2022)

  ABSTRACT: Man has greatly modified his environment at various scale be its through science, technology or dynamism. These changes constitute land use/land cover changes. This research describes the impacts or effects of human activities on vegetal degradation of the Bamoun plateau between 1975 to 2022. The research made use of remote sensing techniques and geographic information system in describing land use/cover changes in the Bamoun area. Primary data was obtained through field observation and ground truthing in order to affirm observation on satellite imageries. land use maps were produced using GIS soft wares packages of Google Earth, Envi 4.3, global mapper 15 and ArcGIS. Maps were generated to show changes in land use/ land cover which were transposed into tables and bar graphs to show the magnitude of changes, percentages of change and the rate of changes. These changes are good for economic and social development but often come with huge consequences on the environment. The analysis of static land use maps of 1975, 1995,2015 and 2022 all pointed to the fact that, there have been significant changes observed on forest cover, farmland, grazing land and settlement land uses. The findings revealed that the study area has experienced a drastic change in land use/land cover during the last forty years. The study area is characterized with decrease in grassland areas, forest and increase in settlement and farmland due to the increasing population which are the main triggering force of land use/land cover changes that has led to the reduction in vegetal cover. Forest decreased from 136,735 hectares (29.2%) in 1975 to 90323 hectares (19.6%) in 2022 indicating a magnitude change of -46412 (9.6%) and grass land decreased from 248777 hectares (53.2%) in 1975 to 265378 hectares in 2022 (57.7%) in 2022 that is a magnitude change of -16601 (-14%). These decreases gave way to settlements and farmland. Therefore, a reduction in the excessive consumption of fuel wood, the practice of eco-forestry, raising of awareness and a dialogue plate-form are amongst the measures recommended to reduce land use/land cover change in the study area.

KEY WORD: land use, land cover changes, Plateau, Bamoun, Natural landscape and dynamics