The social and organisational roots of ecological uncertainties in Cameroon’s forest management decentralisation model

This paper examines Cameroon’s model of forest-management decentralisation by characterising its organisational infrastructure and by assessing – and anticipating – the ecological effects of those policy changes. The essay is based on nvironmental governance research conducted in Cameroon during the last three years. Five Community Forests, one Council Forest and nine forestry fee management committees were covered by the study. Methods of data collection included participant observation, analysis of historical trends, semi-structured interviews at the regional level, focus group meetings, historical transects of landscape and future scenarios. The first section describes the key reforms put in place by the new forest management regime, including the institutional and socio-organisational choices legally prescribed for outlying actors in the decentralised management of forests and their revenues. The mechanisms connecting these institutional and socio-organisational choices to implementation – that is, the management of Community Forests, Council Forests and forestry revenues – are examined in the second part of the essay. The third section assesses the social outcomes of these processes. Ecological risks and uncertainties due to the way decentralised management is conducted at both the local and the regional levels are addressed in the fourth section. The Cameroonian decentralisation model, already registered some positive infra-outcomes. After all, decentralisation is not mechanical. It is not only explainable by laws and institutional arrangements: its implementation depends on many variables. It requires sufficient time to develop due to the complexity of human and institutional behaviour and because of unpredictability, variability, contingency and change, as well as many other stimuli. In sum, it is a ‘story’ of adaptation, with successes and failures. Policy innovations and reforms are in themselves experiments and should not be perceived as victories or crises, but, instead, as arenas of ongoing lessons and progressive learning

Profiling local-level outcomes of environmental decentralizations: the case of Cameroon’s forests in the Congo Basin

Since the mid-1990s, Cameroon has launched a process of decentralization of the management of its forests. Among other innovations, this decentralization process has transferred powers over forests and financial benefits accruing from their exploitation to local communities. This article explores and profiles its local-level outcomes. It shows that the experiment has not yet brought up expected positive results and very often generates internal conflicts, a new social stratification and the marginalization of traditional authorities. Second, the article argues that decentralized management is not producing positive economic results, as there is no significant economic change in the case study villages. Third, it demonstrates that the experiment is leading to negative environmental results, such as the degradation of many community forests in the forested Cameroon. It recommends that policy makers, researchers, nongovernmental organizations, and the local communities design a monitoring framework for decentralized management

The foundations of the conflit de langage over land and forest in southern Cameroon

When Germans colonized Cameroon in the nineteenth century, most of the ethnic groups living in the forest zone had already established territories. However, Germany then became the legal owner of land and forests. This brutal cohabitation of the new version of the state and customary systems of territorial management generated serious problems and has continued to this day in post-independence Cameroon. Among these problems, this paper focuses on the conflit de langage (conflict of language or of discourse) between the state and local communities on land and forests ownership and on the regulation of access to natural resources. This article reconstructs the foundations of this conflit de langage, by revealing elements such as the exclusion of indigenous systems and the requirements of capitalist accumulation. The author explores various property rights formation processes and forestry legislations (German, British, French and post-independence). The article points out how the situation has worsened through the creation of forest concessions on customary lands, the creation of protected areas, the sharing of revenues from commercial logging, the establishment of agroindustries, and oil compensation

Is decentralization in natural resource management leading to livelihoods improvement and sustainability?: evidence from Central Africa

Since 1990, Central African States have made profound natural resource policy reforms. One of the main orientations of these reforms is known today as the ‘decentralization’ of forest management processes within a long lasting context of ‘complex political ecology’. This essay examines the effects of this policy change on livelihoods and forest sustainability. It shows that contrary to what was planned by policy-makers and what was expounded by several theorists, decentralization in forest management and related financial benefits is not yet synonymous with the improvement of livelihoods, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability. On the ground, there are, by and large, very few positive socio-economic outcomes. In conclusion, the author proposes some enabling conditions for an effective link between decentralization and improved livelihood

Institutional deficit, representation, and decentralized forest mangement in Cameroon: elements of natural resource sociology for social theory and public policy

Conducted in the East, South, and Northwest Provinces, this study aims to provide an explanation and understanding of the organizational and institutional infrastructure of decentralized management of Cameroon’s forest—also referred to as “local forest management”—and the mechanisms of the transfer of powers and responsibilities to decentralized entities. It shows that in Cameroon’s forestry domain, the institutional arrangements necessary for local management of common pool resources are either nonexistent or insufficient, hence the notion of “deficit.” The study demonstrates that the Cameroonian model of decentralization of forest management is, in the end, an interrupted process, blocked mid-way to fruition by forces on the regional level (mid-level actors) and by a village elite. The findings give rise to a theory of deviation and of a pattern of regional “capture” of forestry localism and decentralized management. The central State, having failed to establish regulation mechanisms and an approach to monitor the process in all its length seems to have been caught short, leaving decentralization in the hands of networks and mid-level actors whose primary interest is financial gain. This shift permits the diversion of forest governance and the setup of legal “gangsterism” in a field where corruption and abuse of power was already deeply entrenched. This study also enumerates different forms of instrumentalization of decentralized management of Cameroon’s forests, as well as the indicators of socio-economic and ecological counter-performance linked to current social and institutional arrangements

Usages culturels de la foret au Sud-Cameroun: rudiments d'ecologie sociale et materiau pour la gestion du pluralisme

Based on social ecology, anthropological and policy research conducted on social dimension of natural resources management in Cameroon, this contribution liberates a given number of findings: 1. local communities in Cameroon have both an horizontal (practical) and a vertical (metaphysical) perception of the forest; 2. in the course of the time, they have been manipulating forest resources for cultural uses at the two levels. In that sense, cultural manipulation of forest resources is showing beneath popular narration, withcraft, toponymy and ritual orders. These cultural construction need to be carefully and meaningfully, captured and chanelled in the implementation of Programs and policy design. Because local systems are resilient and can not be emarginated successfully in the issue of forest management, the author calls for a cultural adjustment

One step forward, two steps back?: paradoxes of natural resources management decentralisation in Cameroon

Theory informs us that decentralisation, a process through which powers, responsibilities and resources are devolved by the central state to lower territorial entities and regionally/locally elected bodies, increases efficiency, participation, equity, and environmental sustainability. Many types and forms of decentralisation have been implemented in Africa since the colonial period, with varying degrees of success. This paper explores the process of forest management decentralisation conducted in Cameroon since the mid-1990s, highlighting its foundations and characterising its initial assets. Through the transfer of powers to peripheral actors for the management of forestry fees, Council Forests and Community [or Village] Forests, this policy innovation could be empowering and productive. However, careful observation and analysis of relationships between the central state and regional/local-level decentralised bodies, on the one hand, and of the circulation of powers, on the other, show – after a decade of implementation – that the experiment is increasingly governed by strong tendencies towards ‘re-centralisation’, dictated by the practices of bureaucrats and state representatives. The paper also confirms recent empirical studies of ‘the capture of decentralised actors’. It finally shows how bureaucrats and state authorities are haunted by the Frankenstein's monster syndrome, concerning state–local relationships in decentralised forest management

New niches of community rights to forests in Cameroon: tenure reform, decentralization category or something else?

In a difficult political economy, marked notably by a multifaceted crisis, Cameroon, like many other African countries, launched the restructuring of the policy and legal framework that governed the management of forest until the mid-1990s. Given the deep conflict of discourse surrounding the issue of forest ownership and rights to forest in Central Africa, the allocation of new niches of community rights to forest is, in theory, meaningful of the emergence of a new type of relations between the ‘central’ and the ‘local’ and, therefore, a new configuration of issues like resource ‘politics’ and resource governance. Unlike West, East or Southern Africa, resource tenure is a not really an old research domain in Central Africa. While injecting information on the topic, the essay interrogates the nature of ongoing change in the structure of community rights to forest in Cameroon. In policy terms, what is really this change? Some call it tenure change, some others call it decentralization. Using conceptual, theoretical and empirical arguments, the essay conducts a policy analysis of both options and concludes that this is neither a strict decentralization process nor a strict tenure reform. It is a mixture of devolution and delegation of powers. Theorists, policy designers and professional must be informed about this dilemma