Banyang Mbo Wildlife Reserve, Cameroon

  • January - February 2013
  • Cameroon field campaign

Simon Lewis went to Banyang Mbo Wildlife reserve in the eastern English-speaking part of Cameroon, to train the new European Research Council T-FORCES project post-docs, Wannes Hubau and Lan Qie. We are accompanied by Leeds’ best field technician, Martin Gilpin, who will teach the post-docs soil sampling protocols. Following a day’s trek with 18 porters carrying enough food and equipment to say for 3 weeks, we got lost finding the place to camp. We spend two nights in makeshift camps in the forest. Finally we find the plot we need to measure and make a comfortable base for the next 18 days or so. Training goes well, and Simon and Lan Qie leave back to the UK, while Wannes and Serge continue recensusing plots further up the mountain, and establishing a few more. After more than two months of camping, the team leave, have established an altitudinal transect of plots, from <200 meters above sea-level to nearly 1,000 meters, complete with soil samples taken. The rise in temperature going down that altitudinal range is about 4 degrees C, which may provide important information on the responses of forest to higher temperatures.