Zoning in: The contributions of buyam–sellams to constructing Cameroon’s wild food zone

A food market in Yaoundé. [Display omitted] •Studies of forests in Africa use the term zone to denote forested areas.•Zone as a concept in human geography is under-theorized.•A case study of wild foods in Cameroon’s HFZ demonstrates the utility of the zone.•The ‘zone’ offers scholarly insights that other spatial concepts do not. Studies of forests in Africa employ the term zone to denote a particular type of forested area. This limited usage speaks to a need for human geographers to pay more attention to elaborating and engaging with the concept of the zone. This article shows why human geography should pay the ‘zone’ more attention. Using Cameroon’s humid forest zone (HFZ) as a case study, the article focuses on how conceptual elaboration of the ‘zone’ can inform analyses of the food product trade in Cameroon. This trade is organized around various types of buyers and sellers (or buyam–sellam in pidgin), and offers a wide variety of wild products to Cameroon’s urban food consumers, including fruits and vegetables, game meat, condiments, medicinal plants, and fibers. Drawing on fieldwork surveys, interviews and focus groups in twenty-four markets of 203 buyam–sellams and 197 of their customers during the wet and dry seasons, this article analyzes narratives about Cameroon’s wild food zone. It ultimately shows what scholarly attention to the ‘zone’ offers in this case that other spatial concepts do not.