A review by Serge Piabuo on Community forest governance in Cameroon

November 13 07:26 2018

Setting for an indispensable part of the Congo Basin forestry’s ecosystem, Cameroon’s 22 million hectares of tropical forests are a vital source of income, occupation, sustenance, ecosystem, and habitation for over thousands of different many species. Managed for both production and conservation, value chains of Cameroonian Community Forests (CF) products make a move through cultivators, processors, distributors and traders, to buyers domestically and worldwide. The research conducted by Serge Mandiefe Piabuo depicts 6 governance arrangements (participation, representation, direction, equity, accountability, and performance) for the purpose to assess the kind of supervision, challenges facing CF with recorded negative outcomes and thus to bid incentives that could help encourage excellent governance within CF.

Historically, a large number of Cameroon’s forests were confined under customary tenure arrangements and supervised as per customary regulations. As a strategy to sustainably command forests and encourage domestic development, Cameroon’s 1994 forest law was the first in Central Africa to have been put in action for the advancement of community forestry management. However, with enforcement of the Cameroon’s 1994 Forest Law granted customary rights over forest resources and tress, it restricted those rights to usufruct and introduces exclusively to domestic use. Further, customary land rights can be limited or terminated with or without reimbursement depending on the forest category. Regardless of the numerous efforts made to promote sustainable forest management, 3,300,000 hectares of Cameroon’s forests have been scraped since 1990—an area nearly the size of Belgium, says Serge Mandiefe Piabuo, and presently only a total of 301 CFs covering over 1million hectare, accounting 40% of the national forest area for timber extraction, 20% of the national forest area, forests reserves, and hunting zones has some form of management agreement in place.

The author said: Much of this forest loss is believed to be due to growing pressure from other sectors such as infrastructure and subsistence agriculture, hydropower, and commercial mining. Quoting an example, he asserts that a 73,000 hectare oil palm plantation is assigned in a biodiverse forest territory in Southwest Area, and the programmed Lom Pangar Dam in the East Region will flood approximately 32,000 hectares of forest area.

Launched as an initiative to strengthen the Community Forestry, Cameroon has been participating in scores of national & international operation targeted to tackling with challenges on usage of existing land, fortifying the governance of forests and natural resources. As a case representative, Serge Mandiefe Piabuo speaks confidently of Cameroon to be one of the earliest countries to sign a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) through the European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) program that work towards scaling down on the prohibited logging both in local and global markets.

In the outset to strengthening Cameroon’s CFs, the country gained good support from national and international NGO s w.e.f. 2005, MINFOF assisted in other crucial changes to CF s in 2009, like setting application processing deadlines, permitting temporary administration agreements, and reforestation of degraded regions, facilitating the formation of Community Forest’s clusters, pooling resources, commercializing several NTF Ps, negotiating higher sale prices from local companies, and sponsoring by logging organizations rarely aware of their CF rights and legal responsibilities.

Coping up with significant challenges with respect to the level of participation, quality of information, and systemization across sectors, characterization of the Baka in management committees and accreditation of local groups plays a key role that led to the formation of a CF by the Pygmy, increased revenue from CFs, improved employment in CFs, and contribution to social & economical investments like provision of water, wellness, roofing for housing, and conceptual training.

Further, the positive outcomes of improved community participation in Sustainable Development of the forest, improved knowledge of environmental protection, and sustainable exploitation exercises were recognized to mainly include; inclusive and Coordinated Land Use Policies, capacity building, financial & technological support, availability and accessibility of revenue-generating activities.

In harmony with other country findings, the author’s studies demonstrate Cameroon’s external support to be limited to guiding CF s through management procedures that does not yield sustainable development. Further professing, Serge Mandiefe Piabuo says “A degree of dedication of any external support needs to be adequate to allow recipients to blossom enough experience to progressively participate at subsequent stages in the value chain”. External support is most effectual when it reinforces the technological competency of CF governance’s authorities and villages.

A whole-hog of evaluations of CF resources (beyond documenting of treasured timber species), improved infrastructure, information and marketing conditions, than, strengthening the local entrepreneurial ability are key to certifying communities make CF decisions that are both imperishable and profitable.

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