0407-C1
David Brown, Michael B. Vabi and Robert Nkwinkwa *
Tropical forestry is at a crossroads. Rarely, nowadays, can aid investments in the forest sector be justified solely in terms of sector-specific effects. The emphasis is rather on the part that forestry can play in the broader processes of social and environmental change. An area of growing concern is governance reform.
This case study considers the part that community forestry can play as an entry-point for governance reform. It shows how an approach focused on community management of revenues from forest exploitation can encourage what is - potentially at least - a quantum shift in social and economic relations. The case of community forestry in Cameroon demonstrates the mutually supportive roles that can be played by `supply-side' policy changes and `demand-side' means to build accountability from below. It illustrates the importance of macro- and micro-level connections in promoting pro-poor change, and the ways in which improved governance can be made to satisfy both a poverty reduction and governance agenda. It is not suggested that the particular dilemmas of governance in the sub-sector have all been resolved. The case study notes some of the challenges that remain, relating both to governance and livelihoods.
Almost without exception, forestry in high-value humid forest environments is problematic from a governance perspective. The Congo Basin is no exception. For example, a recent study estimates the extent of lost revenues from illegal logging in Cameroon as in excess of US$1 billion over the last 5 years (Auzel et al 2002). Despite concerted efforts to improve its management (the sub-region-wide `Yaoundé Process' being one prominent example), the industry remains a subject of international concern. Broadening the public with an interest in the forest, by giving the riparian communities a stake in its future condition, represents one step among several which is being taken to address the governance problem.
One of the main barriers to improved management of African forests is the weakness of resource tenure for the majority of users. Land and tree tenure is often insecure in former colonies, but especially so in the francophone territories where virtually all land was transferred into state ownership under the colonial regimes, and has since been retained as such. This might be thought to argue for a rights-based approach as a development strategy. However, general land rights promotion implies major land reform. This is not an area in which donors have much of a track record. Moreover, land reform in such a context (land managed extensively and often still in relative surplus) has rarely worked to the benefit of local communities, especially the poor. Given prevailing circumstances within the sub-region, even a reformist government might be forgiven for hesitating to take on such a bold agenda. Arguably, a more restricted approach to tenurial innovation is indicated, in which local communities are offered the opportunity to take out forest management agreements on land that remains under public ownership. Most of the Central African states (namely, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon) are pursuing legislation along these lines. As the first in the field, Cameroon provides an interesting case study of the new approach.
The landmark legislation in Cameroon was the 1994 Forestry Law, which included a provision for community forestry, in the sense of community management of state forest lands, primarily though not exclusively for timber extraction. This was a major innovation, though a qualified one. Community foreestry was to be permitted only in the `non-permanent forest estate' (NPFE) - the zones conceded to eventual land conversion - not the `permanent forest estate' (PFE) - the areas earmarked for long-term timber production. The community was not, however, to be the sole operator in the NPFE, as small logging operations (`Sales of Standing Volume' [Ventes de coupe]) were also permitted in this zone. This created the potential for community/industry conflict over the NPFE resource, which remains a problem to this day.
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) became involved in the programme in 1995, through the `Community Forestry Development Project (CFDP)'. The aim was to support legislative development and reinforce the proposed `Community Forestry Unit (CFU)' within the Department of Forests of the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry (MINEF). The justification for the use of grant-aid at this early stage was that it would subsidise the costs of innovation and also position government and civil society organisations to deliver effective support services. These would stand a chance of self-sufficiency once the income from community exploitation started to come on stream.
One of the initial difficulties was that the institution of `community' was undefined in the forestry legislation, and did not refer to any formal institution in the system of local government. Elsewhere, this dilemma has been handled by promoting interests based on forest use, within a framework defined by residence. The `user group' approach works well in situations where there are relatively stable types of forest use but a problem of eroded biomass. However, it is less helpful where there is no major problem of resource degradation, and where the types of usage involve a combination of livelihoods practices (NTFP harvesting, hunting, etc.) and major innovations in forest use (commercial timber harvesting).
The strategy adopted was to include a clause within the `Manual of Procedures for Community Forestry' requiring that all members of the community be consulted before a community forestry could be legally established. The nature of the `community' was left undefined. A grievance procedure was put in place to allow anyone who felt that they had been improperly excluded to register a complaint. Local representatives of both the forest and territorial administrations had to attest that an application had the support of its community before the relevant file could be processed. This approach had the advantage of ready adaptability to local circumstances, rather than the imposition of a `one-size fits all' model, with the potential to exclude as well as to empower.
There were two other crucial enabling innovations in the advancement of the legislation. The first was the delegation of the right of the forestry administration to exploit forests `en régie' (in the public interest) to local communities. This circumvented the need to involve a licensed operator. The second was the passing into law, at the end of 2001, of a new regulation relating to droits de préémption (first user rights). This granted communities a two-year protected period in which to establish their claim to a community forest, before the area in question could be exploited industrially. These two innovations were crucial in shifting authority away from the industry to the local communities. Neither had been foreseen when the law was first passed.
Nevertheless, these innovations are unlikely to be sufficient, in themselves, to achieve any substantial long-term improvements in either local livelihoods or the quality of governance. In tropical moist forests, logging operations demand high capital investments and technical competence. While the potential benefits are very great (for example, it has been estimated that communities could earn twenty times as much from sale of processed sawnwood as they can from sale of standing volume),1 capital outlay is `front-loaded', with heavy expenditures on inventory and management planning long before any income comes on-stream. This dramatically increases the risks to local communities, particularly the poor. By far the biggest benefits, moreover, would come from sale of community products on the `green markets' of Western Europe. The mark-up on price in such markets is many times greater than that on the already over-supplied local markets for low quality sawnwood.
It is most unlikely that many forest-dwelling communities can handle these operations on their own. External support is required if community forestry is both to become viable in its own right, and to make a significant contribution to improving livelihoods. It is in this reference that links are being sought to the provisions for decentralised local governments and Cameroon's `Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper' (PRSP). Effective linkages to local government might not only provide the capital to pump-prime community forestry, and move it towards sustainability, but also create greater accountability in the use of forest sector revenues.
In Cameroon, the basic unit of local government is the Local Council or `commune'2. In the forest zone, the councils have two main sources of taxation, on which they depend for 85% of their revenues: These are:
These revenues could make a sizeable contribution to enhancing community forestry, and provide significant knock-on benefits for improving local livelihoods.3
Creating a constituency with an interest in the future management of the forest is a value in its own right. It would also foster a national constituency for poverty alleviation. A well-financed system of decentralised local government, with high levels of local fiscal control, would go a long way towards improving the quality of community services (including extension for community forestry) and give local people a much greater say in moulding the services delivered to them. And by linking poverty alleviation to internal revenue-raising and expenditure on a fairly short time-frame (rather than discretionary allocations of donor and government funds), this ownership could become organically rooted in Cameroon society. The Government of Cameroon acknowledged the potential of the forest sector in the Interim PRSP, and the rural sector (including forestry) will provide one chapter of the PRSP which is presently (11/02) in final stages of preparation.4 A US $4.5 million project has recently been approved to strengthen community management of forest and wildlife resources, financed from debt relief (HIPC) project funds.5
Despite a slow start, community forestry is now well established in Cameroon and demand is growing fast. In December 2001, only 17 community forests were under community management in full conformity with the Manual of Procedures; this had risen to over 40 by October 2002 (out of a total of 190 files held by the CFU). Though many problems still remain, a constituency is rapidly developing in Cameroon for community involvement in forest and wildlife management, where only four years ago, there had been absolutely none at all.
Improving the quality of environmental governance in Cameroon's forest zone has thus involved seeking to create a new set of clients for public services, and new rules to establish their access to the resource. What conclusions can be drawn from this case study about the relationships between governance and rural livelihoods?
Firstly, that policy development in sectors with governance problems is fairly problematic, involving two-way support between supply and demand. It benefits both from supply-side pressures for policy reform, from the donors and others, and from demand-side pressures to build accountability from below. There is a need not only for central policy development, but also learning from the grass roots up. This is partly because local experience is required to develop operational policy, partly because local engagement is an important driver for change.
Secondly, that establishing a tenurial right over the resource at an early stage - even if only in an intermediate form - is an important step in giving people control over their livelihoods.
Thirdly, that developing new institutional arrangements in a technically demanding field demands a long-term commitment by governments and donors, and an ability to act flexibly. In the early stages, the emphasis was on skills in legal analysis and draughtsmanship, as well as sociology; now, technical forestry and marketing skills are at a premium, as exploitation of the resource comes to the fore.
Fourthly, that the lack of duplication in the delivery system is a potential weakness. This constraint cannot easily be `designed out' by donor influence. Again, it calls for long-term commitment and a diversified approach. There is a major role for NGOs. All this has resourcing implications that are most unlikely to be satisfied without external support.
Fifthly, that the linkages which are being made to the new architecture of international aid (democratic decentralisation, the poverty reduction strategy) provide an important additional lever for change and may act as a means of generating government and public commitment to the reform.
Viewed from the perspectives of livelihoods and governance, however, a number of challenges still present themselves.
a) Local livelihoods
An integrated livelihoods perspective has long been de rigueur in rural development forestry, and the need to protect diverse local livelihoods was central to the move to bring communities into forest management. But has the outcome been to promote these diverse livelihoods?
Potentially it has. The new legislation gives communities the right, in principle, to manage the forests for their own needs. Certain locally-valued (but often neglected) livelihood practices, such as NTFP management, protection of sites of cultural value and game hunting are included in the new legislation. But there is a bias to marketed benefits that encourages a focus on timber production in most areas. This has the advantage of helping to move the debate on from forest safety nets and social protection to growth-based options for transcending poverty. However, it could do so at the expense of other aspects of rural livelihoods, particularly those non-marketed services that are central to the welfare of many local communities.
b) Improved environmental governance
A second concern is with environmental quality. If the forestry administration has to date lacked the capacity to effectively monitor the large forest concessions in the permanent forest estate, it must be wondered how much more effective they will be in managing much bigger numbers of small-scale concessions, dispersed across the non-permanent estate.6 Major challenges also present themselves as regards standard setting, and monitoring the flow between the two sub-sectors (community and industrial). These require new control procedures, as well as high levels of information on sustainable levels of offtake and sylvicultural standards that may take years to generate.
c) Checks and balances
The presumption behind community forestry is that broad community participation will improve the levels of accountability and the husbandry of the resource. But how certain is it that community involvement will introduce checks and balances into the system? Is the potential for abuse just being shifted from one nexus (government/forest industry) to another, even more complicated, one (government/forest industry/communities)? How easy will it be to supervise the interface between numerous weak and dispersed rural communities and a group of powerful industrial concerns?
One policy innovation that might help redress the balance would be to restrict the timber industry to the permanent forest estate, retaining the non-permanent forest purely for community purposes. However, such a move would be resisted by the industry, to which the NPFE has hitherto acted as something of a safety valve, and a means to compensate for the periodic nature of concession allocations.7 Alternatively, there could be restrictions on the technology to be operated in the NPFE, on both social and sustainability grounds.8 In an attempt to guard against the `industrialisation of community forestry', the proposed technological input has been identified as one of the criteria by which management plans for community forests are to be judged. It remains to be seen whether resistance from within the industry will compromise this approach.
d) Livelihoods issues in the `chain of custody'
The governance agenda also raises other livelihoods concerns. For example, attempts to regulate the chain of custody for industrial timber have centred on measures to improve the management of the PFE. International regulations require that companies wishing to certify their timber products must also ensure that other resources such as wildlife are conserved, within their areas of operation. While well intentioned, these proposals are not without problems, particularly as regards the forest-dependent poor's continued right of access to the resources on which their welfare depends. If they are extended to the NPFE, then the areas left to such traditional practices could be very small indeed.
Community forestry is thus no magical elixir to improve forest governance overnight. But its value needs to be judged against what existed before. For example, drawing communities into the sphere of legitimate forest use has already generated important new information about the condition of the resource, and the levels of benefit that it can generate. This is helping to create a more transparent environment for forest exploitation, which could well have a wider impact on public governance. And new management models are now being developed, and new public-private partnerships forged.
Community forestry cannot, on its own, ensure good governance of the forest sector. Other initiatives are also needed - for example, open tendering procedures combined with increased supervision and monitoring of concession management plans; increased transparency of revenues in the sector; and new regulations to sanction non-compliance by the industry.
All of these together offer the prospect of a well-regulated industry in a region and sector where the need for sound forest governance is very great.
Auzel, P. et al., 2002. Première approche pour une évaluation de l'incidence de l'exploitation forestière illégale à l'echélle nationale, Cameroun, report to DFID, Yaoundé.
Brown, D. et al., 2002. Forestry as an Entry Point for Governance Reform, ODI Forestry Briefing Paper, No. 1, London.
Brown, D. et al., 2002. From Supervising `Subjects' to Supporting `Citizens': Recent Developments in Community Forestry in Asia and Africa, ODI Natural Resource Perspectives No.75, London.
Brown, D., 1999. Principles and Practice of Forest Co-Management: Evidence from West-Central Africa , EU Tropical Forestry Papers No.2, ODI, London.
CFDP, 2002. The costs and benefits of community forestry in Cameroon, draft, Yaoundé.
MINEF, 2002. Manual of Procedures for the Acquisition and Norms for the Management of Community Forests, second edition, Yaoundé.
Rural Development Forestry Network. 2001. Community Forestry: Facing Up to the Challenge in Cameroon, Mailing No.25, ODI, London (16 articles by various authors).
Vabi, M. et al., 2000. The Devolution of forest management responsibilities to local communities: context and implementation hurdles in Cameroon, WWF, Yaoundé.
Vabi, M., 2002. Framework for Improving Forest Legislation on Community Forestry: Drawing Inspirations from the Situation in Cameroon, paper prepared for the 2nd International Workshop on Community Forestry in Africa. Arusha, Tanzania, February, 2002.
Vabi, M. et al., 2002. Community Management of Forest and Forest-based Resources in Cameroon: A Story of Hopes and Challenges, paper prepared for the CIFOR National Forum, Yaoundé, April 2002.
* Research Fellow, Overseas Development Institute, 111 Westminster bridge Road, London SE1 7JD, UK. [email protected]
1 Initial data suggests that the absolute maximum a community can expect to receive from the sale of standing volume is 10,000 FCA/m3. This rises to 40,000 FCA/m3 or more for planks, with prices of up to 200,000 FCA/m3 in exceptional cases for high quality timber (eg. Sapele).
2 There are 338 councils in the country, 205 of them rural.
3 The sums in question are significant. The total RFA stands at 2.8 billion CFA, ($4.2 mn.). - $2 per eligible citizen per year (which compares with the present income per capita actually received by the communes of $0.66/year). The total CAC available annually (though not necessarily distributed) has been estimated at 21 billion CFA ($32 mn. - $2 per capita).
4 Cameroon is exceptional in the extent to which it recognises the importance of the productive, as well as social, sectors in its PRSP.
5 Projet de Renforcement des Initiatives pour la Gestion Communautaire des ressources forestières et fauniques (RIGC).
6 The area under community management at the end of the first phase of the programme could be as high as one million hectares (5% of the total natural forest area, 17% of the non-permanent forest estate).
7 Paradoxically, the greater the external pressure on Cameroon to properly manage the major forest resources (ie. those in the permanent forest), the greater has been the stress upon the forest resources of greatest value to the poor (the non-permanent forest).
8 This would limit the offtake to the kind of volumes that could be handled on a sustainable basis by the artisanal sector. The high volume of the cut needed to cover the industry's capital outlay represents a major threat to the viability of community/private sector alliances, given the small areas involved.