The following recommendations are advanced based on the discussion above.
1. There is a need to assess and document secondary forests in Africa (both Anglophone and Francophone) including determining its extent at national level.
2. Future management of secondary forests needs to be carefully planned with zones designated for community harvest of forest products and strict conservation.
3. Most of the socio-economic issues related to secondary forests in Africa are centred on forest products harvesting and degradation. There is a need to promote on-farm tree cultivation to provide alternative forest products and relieve pressure on secondary forests.
4. The current tropical forests in Africa have been heavily degraded and or depleted of forest resources. In effect they are secondary forests. There is a need to intensify research on secondary forests to increase the understanding of their socio-economic importance, generate data for planning the conservation and management of the forests and to link socio-economic issues to ecology and policy regimes affecting secondary forests.
