Homegardens of Guinean Savannah Highlands of Adamawa in Vina, Cameroon: Woody floristic diversity and climate change mitigation potential
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26832/24566632.2026.110201Keywords:
Carbon stock, Floristic diversity, Homegardens, Stand structureAbstract
Homegardens stock carbon is crucial for climate mitigation. The aim of this study was to evaluate woody floristic diversity and climate change mitigation potential of homegardens in the Guinean Savannah highlands of Adamawa in Vina, Cameroon. For this, a household survey was conducted among 150 farmers in six villages. Botanical inventories were carried out in each village and the collected data was analysed in various ways. The results showed that the farmers populations have good understanding of climate change and have developed local mitigation strategies. In the homegardens of Vina, 1299 individuals were recorded, belonging to 39 species, 28 genera and 20 families. Tello locality had a greater number of individuals, species, genera and families than the other localities, with 309, 25, 22 and 19, respectively. The Shannon index of different locality was 1.92 in Malang and 2.42 in Bakari-bata. The homegardens in the Bakari-bata locality stored more carbon (175.38±136.96 tC/ha) and CO2 equivalent (643.67±502.66tCO2/ha) than other localities. According the age of homegardens, mature homegardens (between 30 and 40 years old) store a significant amount of carbon (175.16±93.49 tC/ha) and consequently CO2 equivalent (642.84±343.12 tCO2/ha). Thus, the results indicated the effectiveness of homegardens in mitigating climate change and contributed to the development of a database on REDD+ mechanisms in Adamawa region of Cameroon.
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