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In many traditional societies, beliefs and taboos influence human behaviour towards the natural environment. Such beliefs and taboos are informal institutions where norms rather than official laws determine land use and nature protection in general and wildlife in particular. The present study on beliefs and taboos of the people of the northern periphery of the Korup National Park is an attempt to reveal how norms influence their relation to the environment. A total of 195 households were sampled through a household survey conducted in four villages. The results revealed that before the application of “modern” approaches for wildlife protection and management, the people relied on norms to establish a relationship with wildlife and nature. The enactment of the 1994 legislation on forest, wildlife and fisheries resulted in stiff resistance as it contradicts traditional norms. It was found that 57.4 % of the respondents still perceive wildlife as a resource that can never get extinct. Traditional norms had a differentiated impact especially on game protection. The study recommends that a wildlife benefiting code of beliefs and taboos is developed to provide a basis for establishing a synergy between park management laws and traditional belief/taboo systems that drive the management of wildlife.

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Forest certification is one of the best known voluntary environmental programs for sustainable forest management in the world today. The main objective of this study is to assess the role of forest certification in forest management in Cameroon. Primary and secondary research approaches were used to sought data and information from relevant governmental legislation and reports, certification systems website as well as interviews with staffs of the ministry, forest concessions and certification schemes. Analysis revealed that the number of Forest Management Units in Cameroon increased from 105 in 2004 to 120 in 2019 while surface area increased from 6,961,700 hectares to 7,073,056 hectares. The results also indicated that the number of concessions certified by FSC increased from 1