Forestland Resource Exploitation Challenges and Opportunities in the Campo Ma’an Landscape, Cameroon

The global literature underscores a set of human wellbeing challenges and opportunities for forestland exploitation, albeit the lack of region-specific evidence. This concerns the Congo Basin, the second-largest forest ecosystem in the world. This study uses the case of the Campo Ma’an Landscape to: (i) analyze the challenges linked to the exploitation of forestland resources, and (ii) explore forest resource exploitation opportunities in the landscape. The study employed a random sample of 200 natural resource-dependent households drawn from four study zones—Niete, Campo, Ma’an and Akom II. This was complemented by focus group discussions (n = 4), key informant (n = 6) and expert (n = 6) interviews. The descriptive and inferential analyses led to the following results: First, economic, technical, socio-cultural and institutional challenges affect the sustainable exploitation of forestland resources in the Campo Ma’an Landscape. The economic challenges of forest (B = −0.389, p = 0.01) and land resource exploitation (B = −0.423, p = 0.006) significantly affect sustainable exploitation compared to other challenges, leading to biodiversity loss and deforestation. These constitute a threat to planetary health systems. Almost all households rely on forestland resources for their livelihoods and development, with opportunities for land resource exploitation outweighing those in forest resource exploitation. Protected area management and agriculture are affected owing to competing interests among farmers, conservationists and other land users. Thus, short-term economic gains are prioritized over long-term sustainability, putting the resource landscape at risk of degradation and future uncertainties. Integrated stakeholder engagement, capacity building, and policy revision could enhance the planetary health approach by linking the social, economic and environmental dimensions of forestland resource management.