Despite the long history of anxiety about shifting cultivation practices by small-scale farmers in Central African forests causing deforestation, this is the first study that examines the temporal and spatial dynamics of shifting cultivation landscapes and the influence of landscape configuration on secondary vegetation regrowth in fallows. This is important not least because, within the landscape matrix, fallow vegetation is crucial to alleviate effects of losses of forest vegetation, and biodiversity as well as negative impacts on carbon balance. Moreover, fallows provide food, beverage, fuel, building and medicinal products harvested from a diversity of plant species, whose value for local livelihoods is well known.