Over a period of five years, the presence of the Mount Cameroon Project has helped local people understand and articulate their concerns and interest in gaining a say in the management of forest lands in the Onge-Mokoko area. For a long time suspicious of the project, the adjacent Boa Plain community planned their own independent ëdealí with a private logging company. With project advice and support, an Environmental Impact Assessment became a participatory decision-making tool, resulting in better knowledge and discussion of the options for land use, and the planned large-scale logging was abandoned. The participatory activities have since lead to a dynamic and organised community-based mapping and land use planning process, and a broad range of individual resource management initiatives that promises to contribute directly to improved livelihoods, good governance, increased local capacity for forest and land management, and biodiversity conservation - the project goal.