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Top2. Description Of The Study Area
The Western High Plateau, Western Highlands or Bamenda Grassfields is a region of Cameroon characterised by high relief, cool temperatures, heavy rainfall and savanna vegetation. The region lies along the Cameroon line and consists of mountain ranges and volcanoes made of crystalline and igneous rocks. The region borders the South Cameroon Plateau to the southeast, the Adamawa Plateau to the northeast and the Cameroon coastal plain to the south. It has many volcanic peaks such as the Bamboutous Mountains (2740m), Oku Mountains (3001m) as well as volcanic lakes such as Lake Oku, Lake Wum and Lake Nyos. Figure one indicates the location of the western highland in Cameroon.
Figure 1.
The location and layout of the Western Highlands
The plateau experiences an equatorial climate of the Cameroon type with two major seasons: A long, wet season of nine months, and a short, dry season of three months. During the wet season, humid, prevailing monsoon winds blow in from the west and lose their moisture upon hitting the region's mountains. Average rainfall per year ranges from 1,000 mm to 2,000 mm. High elevations gives the region a cooler climate than the rest of Cameroon. For example, the average temperature at Dschang in the West Region is 20°C. Toward the north, rainfall levels are reduced as the Sudan climate becomes predominant.
The Western Highland was once heavily forested. However, repeated cutting and burning by human beings has forced the forest back to areas along the waterways and has allowed grasslands to expand into the area. Sudan savanna forms the dominant vegetation. This consists of grassfields-leading to the name Bamenda grassfields around the city of Bamenda-and short shrubs and trees that shed their foliage during the dry season as a defence against brush fires and dry weather. Raffia palms grow in the valleys and depressions.
The western highlands straddle the border between the Anglophone and francophone parts of the former Cameroon federation. There is a certain cultural homogeneity among the peoples of this region despite ancient histories of migrations and conflict. Almost all of them developed centralized chiefdoms that have powerful politico religious chiefs. About nine-tenths of these people are rural. They are often lumped together under the designation of “grasslanders” because of the characteristic vegetation cover of their region. Their languages, called Sudanic or semi-Bantu by some linguists, have been classified as Bantu. Bantu speakers make up a great part of the people in central and southern Africa, although Bantu languages constitute only a subcategory of the Benue-Congo family of languages, itself a branch of the Congo-Kordofanian stock.