Global China and the ‘commons': rosewood governance in rural Ghana

The rise of Global China or the rapid expansion of Chinese influence abroad has had a commensurate impact on transnational trade and related commercial pressure in the governance of natural resources in Africa. Rosewood with its direct link to China's cultural renaissance has had a boost in extractivism in tropical regions. Taking inspiration from common property theory and based on empirical research conducted in Ghana in 2022, we analyze the effect of the Ghana-China rosewood trade on the governance of rosewood as a ‘common-pool’ resource in rural Ghana. Our research broadly responds to the question of how the Ghana-China rosewood trade changes formal and informal governance arrangements in rural Ghana. In a constructive light, the study demonstrates how one community created rules to access rosewood on community lands. The results also show that more challenging influences of rosewood trade on land boundary disputes resulting from violent protests of existing rules and norms, including customary rights, contestation of rural authorities, rural leadership manoeuvrings, and corruption are increasingly prevalent since the boom in the rosewood trade at the local level. This study contributes to the debate on common-pool resources, demonstrating that with the right information and communication network, rural people can self-govern common-pool resources to their advantage despite the alarming influences that external factors pose. From a China-Africa relations perspective, this work contributes to the politics of natural resources in the context of the increasing global influence of China in Africa

Complementarity, rivalry and substitution in the governance of forests: Learning from independent forest monitoring system in Cameroon

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Elsevier in Forest Policy and Economics on 06/08/2019, available online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2019.101981 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.The consequence of state controlled forestry in Cameroon has been the overexploitation of forest resources often in conflict with local forest dependent communities and state conservation objectives. The failure of state controlled forestry to achieve sustainable forest management has led to the emergence of new network like arrangements amongst which is independent forest monitoring (IFM) by civil society. The aim of this paper is to scrutinize the factors which affect the effectiveness of IFM governance network in Cameroon. Our research focused on a case study of Cameroon, employing a governance network perspective. The main findings are that national civil society in Cameroon is playing a significant role in improving transparency in the forest sector and holding decision makers to account. The paper finds a shift from technical areas of forest monitoring to the monitoring of social obligations and the respect of community rights by private companies. An analysis of actors highlights a strong network of national NGOs with self-defined goals and strategies engaged in very fluid relationships with law enforcement agencies beyond traditional ministries of forests and wildlife characterised by a spectrum ranging from complementarity, substitution and rivalry. The lack of sustainable funding and weak capabilities of national NGOs to navigate these fluid relationships emerges as core constraints for network effectiveness. Accordingly, recommendations for effectiveness entail strategies for sustainable funding, capacity strengthening and network coordination to address current weaknesses but also to build trust and credibility of the governance network.This work was supported by the European Union [ENV/2016/380-500]; and the University of Wolverhampton's Research Investment Fund 3.Accepted versio

Forest-Poverty Dynamics: Current State of Knowledge

This chapter reports on evidence about the role of forests and trees in alleviating poverty and supporting wider human well-being. It considers how, whether, where, when and for whom forests and trees are important in forest-poverty dynamics. We organise the evidence according to four possible relationships between forest products and ecosystem services and poverty: 1) helping households move out of poverty; 2) supporting well-being through subsistence, food security and cultural and spiritual values; 3) mitigating risks; and 4) decreasing well-being by generating negative externalities that could significantly contribute to trapping or moving households into poverty. The evidence shows that these relationships are strongly context-dependent, varying with geography and social, economic and political contexts. However, across contexts, we most commonly observe that forest and tree products and services help the poor to secure and stabilise their livelihoods, rather than either helping them exit poverty or driving them into poverty.Peer reviewe

Inside Forest Diplomacy: A Case Study of the Congo Basin under Global Environmental Governance

International audienceThe growing global interest in biodiversity conservation and the role of forestland sustainability in climate change mitigation has led to the emergence of a new specific field of global environmental governance that we called ‘forest diplomacy’. With the largest tropical forest area after the Amazon, Congo Basin countries (CBc) constitute a major negotiation bloc within global forest-related governance arenas. Despite this position, CBc seem embedded in a failure trap with respect to their participation in forest diplomacy arenas. This paper examines the major causes of the recurrent failures of CBc within forest diplomacy. A qualitative empirical approach (including key informant interviews, groups discussion, participant observation, and policy document review) was used. From a conceptual and theoretical perspective, this research combines global and political sociology approaches including environmentality and blame avoidance works. The main finding reveals that the recurrent failures of CBc in forest diplomacy are partly due to the lack of strategic and bureaucratic autonomy of CBc that strongly depend on financial, technical, and knowledge resources from Western cooperation agencies or consultancy firms. Our discussion highlights that this dependency is maintained by most of the key actor groups involved in forest diplomacy related to CBc, as they exploit these failures to serve their private interests while avoiding the blame of not reducing deforestation and biodiversity loss in the Congo Basin

The politics of forest governance failure in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): lessons from 35 years of political rivalries

International audienceThe promotion of good governance in the forestry sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was one of the major components of the policy reforms initiated by international organisations in the mid-1980s. This paper analyses concepts of 'good governance' in the forestry sector in the DRC between the mid-1980s and 2020 and highlights the recent history of forest policy reforms. From an empirical perspective, our analysis builds both on an extensive review of policy documents and field observations, as well as interviews with actors who have been involved with forest policy reforms or seen how they were implemented. The paper also describes the key actors involved in those reforms and investigates the coalitions formed between some of them to influence the forestland governance in the country. The paper demonstrates that international organisations have often played a decisive and intrusive role in the promotion of 'good governance' in the DRC forestry sector. Their strong involvement is sometimes seen as interference and has aggravated rather than alleviated the governance crisis. In some cases, politicians, military and administrative officers have used political and security unrest as a scapegoat to benefit from forest governance failure and the related business-as-usual in the DRC