Landscape-scale approaches for integrated natural resource management in tropical forest landscapes

Integrated natural resource management (INRM) helps resource users, managers, and others to manage resources sustainably by considering, reconciling, and synergizing their various interests and activities. Although many social and environmental problems have to be tackled at a range of scales to be resolved successfully, INRM has particular relevance at the landscape level at which the interests of local people first intersect those of the outside world. We propose eight guidelines for building successful INRM programs: focus on multiscale analysis and intervention; develop partnerships and engage in action research; facilitate change rather than dictating it; promote visioning and the development of scenarios; recognize the importance of local knowledge; foster social learning and adaptive management; concentrate on both people and their natural resources, including biodiversity; and embrace complexity. Reviewing these guidelines in the light of experiences from three separate studies shows that most are being done, though more as a product of happenstance than design. The guidelines form a mutually reinforcing framework for building INRM, primarily through empowering local stakeholders to be more articulate advocates and active participants in their own development and conservation efforts

Disentangling the relative effects of bushmeat availability on human nutrition in central Africa

We studied links between human malnutrition and wild meat availability within the Rainforest Biotic Zone in central Africa. We distinguished two distinct hunted mammalian diversity distributions, one in the rainforest areas (Deep Rainforest Diversity, DRD) containing taxa of lower hunting sustainability, the other in the northern rainforest-savanna mosaic, with species of greater hunting potential (Marginal Rainforest Diversity, MRD). Wild meat availability, assessed by standing crop mammalian biomass, was greater in MRD than in DRD areas. Predicted bushmeat extraction was also higher in MRD areas. Despite this, stunting of children, a measure of human malnutrition, was greater in MRD areas. Structural equation modeling identified that, in MRD areas, mammal diversity fell away from urban areas, but proximity to these positively influenced higher stunting incidence. In DRD areas, remoteness and distance from dense human settlements and infrastructures explained lower stunting levels. Moreover, stunting was higher away from protected areas. Our results suggest that in MRD areas, forest wildlife rational use for better human nutrition is possible. By contrast, the relatively low human populations in DRD areas currently offer abundant opportunities for the continued protection of more vulnerable mammals and allow dietary needs of local populations to be met

Differences between Pygmy and Non-Pygmy hunting in Congo Basin forests

We use data on game harvest from 60 Pygmy and non-Pygmy settlements in the Congo Basin forests to examine whether hunting patterns and prey profiles differ between the two hunter groups. For each group, we calculate hunted animal numbers and biomass available per inhabitant, P, per year (harvest rates) and killed per hunter, H, per year (extraction rates). We assess the impact of hunting of both hunter groups from estimates of numbers and biomass of prey species killed per square kilometre, and by examining the proportion of hunted taxa of low, medium and high population growth rates as a measure of their vulnerability to overhunting. We then map harvested biomass (kg-1P-1Yr-1) of bushmeat by Pygmies and non-Pygmies throughout the Congo Basin. Hunting patterns differ between Pygmies and non-Pygmies; Pygmies take larger and different prey and non-Pygmies sell more for profit. We show that non-Pygmies have a potentially more severe impact on prey populations than Pygmies. This is because non-Pygmies hunt a wider range of species, and twice as many animals are taken per square kilometre. Moreover, in non-Pygmy settlements there was a larger proportion of game taken of low population growth rate. Our harvest map shows that the non-Pygmy population may be responsible for 27 times more animals harvested than the Pygmy population. Such differences indicate that the intense competition that may arise from the more widespread commercial hunting by non-Pygmies is a far more important constraint and source of conflict than are protected areas

Landscape-scale approaches for integrated natural resource management in tropical forest landscapes

Integrated natural resource management (INRM) helps resource users, managers, and others to manage resources sustainably by considering, reconciling, and synergizing their various interests and activities. Although many social and environmental problems have to be tackled at a range of scales to be resolved successfully, INRM has particular relevance at the landscape level at which the interests of local people first intersect those of the outside world. We propose eight guidelines for building successful INRM programs: focus on multiscale analysis and intervention; develop partnerships and engage in action research; facilitate change rather than dictating it; promote visioning and the development of scenarios; recognize the importance of local knowledge; foster social learning and adaptive management; concentrate on both people and their natural resources, including biodiversity; and embrace complexity. Reviewing these guidelines in the light of experiences from three separate studies shows that most are being done, though more as a product of happenstance than design. The guidelines form a mutually reinforcing framework for building INRM, primarily through empowering local stakeholders to be more articulate advocates and active participants in their own development and conservation efforts

Wildlife, loggers and livelihoods in the Congo Basin

This paper examines the history of forest management and conservation in the Congo Basin. It identifies some of the reasons for the limited success in applying ecosystem approaches to forest management. The lack of long-term consistent policies and programmes and the relative weakness of forest sector institutions emerge as fundamental problems. The chapter identifies one tool, participatory modelling, that can help stakeholders to get grips with the complecity of the social-ecological systems of which their forests are part. Such modelling exercises can help enable stakeholders with diverse interests to explore scenarios and negotiations outcomes that are consistent with ecosystem approaches to sustainable forest management

Global financial crisis impacts forest conservation in Cameroon

The forests of SE Cameroon lie within the Sangha tri-national landscape (TNS), a priority area for biodiversity conservation under the Congo Basin Forest Partnership. A monitoring program showed minimal changes in conservation and local livelihoods indicators from 2006 to 2008. Following the global financial crisis in late 2008 global demand for timber decreased and this led to suspension of logging activities and lay-offs of staff by logging companies; both biodiversity and livelihood indicators deteriorated. The unemployed workers lost their incomes, experienced declining living standards and reverted to poaching and slash and burn agriculture. Pygmies were no longer able to obtain employment in Bantu agricultural plots, sell forest products to logging company employees or sell bushmeat to passing logging trucks. These global economic forces had greater impact on livelihoods and the environment than local interventions by conservation organizations. Livelihood indicators improved in 2010 and 2011 when the economy picked-up but those for environmental values did not recover as rapidly

Central Africa’s protected areas and the purported displacement of people: a first critical review of existing data

This paper examines the validity of data from the 12 case studies in six Central African parks cited by Cernea and Schmidt-Soltau (2003, 2006) and Schmidt-Soltau (2003). The same data are used for multiple papers to support the authors’ arguments relating to the human welfare costs of protected area establishment, which is, in turn, being uncritically cited by others also questioning whether such trade-offs are acceptable (e.g., Hutton et al. 2005; Tiani and Diaw 2006). All the data were collected by Schmidt-Soltau alone. To avoid multiple citations of the same data in the various publications, the authors refer to the data source as “Schmidt-Soltau.” The sites concerned range from protected areas established in colonial times to new ones established in the last five years. These papers provide an overview of the surface areas of the different countries, area of original forest cover, rate and extent of tropical forest loss, and the extent of protected areas in each country. The data on the specific sites presented include: 1) park area, 2) whether there is a resettlement policy, 3) the population in or around the parks, 4) whether people were expelled from parks or denied access to previously used land, 5) whether there is a compensation strategy, and 6) whether there was any demonstrable “success.”1. The authors echo the call of Wilkie et al. (2006) for the use of sound science to examine these issues, as the perceived conflict of poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation is creating polarized viewpoints that are, at times, based more in the halls of academia than in real-life village and park situations. The presentation of detailed and accurate data is essential when constructing and testing hypotheses about cause and effect. In this paper the accuracy of the data presented in the Schmidt-Soltau articles is examined and found wanting in various ways; more precise data are offered instead to demonstrate a more accurate picture of what is happening on the ground, and in the communities around these protected areas in Central Africa