Rural livelihoods and biodiversity in Afrotropical agroforestry systems and oil palm plantations

West African forested landscapes are characterized by social and economic complexities, but face a number of challenges including over-exploitation of natural resources and habitat degradation, but more recently an emerging wave of industrial oil palm development. This study aimed to address some of the apparent knowledge gaps on land use and its effects on biodiversity and rural livelihood in an Afrotropical forest biodiversity hotspot in Southwest Cameroon. We describe both socio-economic conditions of rural households as well as biodiversity indicators in a traditional agroforestry matrix, an industrial oil palm plantation and a national park, in order to explore the potential compromise between human livelihoods and forest conservation. We interviewed 118 households in 12 settlements equally distributed across the three landscapes, using standardized questionnaires on income generation and expenditures. We further systematically sampled birds in 432 sample points around those 12 settlements. We also surveyed large mammals across the agroforestry matrix and different protected areas along 638 km line transects. We found slight differences in total income between the park and the surrounding villages, though higher income from forest products was generated in the national park compared to the agroforestry matrix, whereas self-employment and wage labour were more important in the agroforestry matrix. However, plantation households spend significantly more time on generating a similar income than households in the national park and agroforestry matrix. Although plantation households were nearly 40% smaller than those in agroforestry and national park, their expenditures were significantly higher, nearly twice as high for food alone. Bird species richness was overall similar in national park and agroforestry matrix, but dropped by ca. 30% in oil palm plantations with true forest species mainly lacking. All diurnal primates, including chimpanzees, as well as ungulates and forest elephants were still present in the agricultural matrix, but had lower encounter rates there compared to the national park. Our results highlight that heterogeneous agroforestry matrices in West Africa can assure more diversified and sufficient livelihoods than wage labour in industrial oil palm plantations and might thus represent a more sustainable future for rural households. The biodiversity data suggests that a sustainable coexistence between wildlife and people in these agroforestry matrices may be achieved when agricultural production is smallholder-based, diversified and maintains substantial proportions of forests. Moreover, such a landscape will certainly also be permeable for large mammals and maintain connectivity between protected areas.