Local, national and international interests in both Prunus africana and the African grey parrots arise because they are export products that are demanded in increasing quantities to meet the needs of the international community. Conservation concerns, management refinements and putting in place control systems as well as systems for ex-situ production are all consequences of increasing commercialization of these two species. For example, in 1999, Prunus africana was wealth some US$ 700000 to Cameroon and US$ 200 million to the international pharmaceutical companies in Europe and America (CARPE, 2001). With regards to the African grey parrots, if the annual quota of 12000 birds are captured and sold as pets in Europe, they can fetch up to six billion FCFA (US$ 9.23 million) to the international dealers but would be worth some 96 million FCFA (US$ 148000) to the Cameroonian government. In terms of revenue capture, the trade in these two species may fetch for the Cameroon government 0.35% and 1.6% of the international trade value for Prunus africana and the African grey parrots respectively. To the producing communities, these products may provide up to 70% to household revenues and in some village communities over 60% of the population are involved in production.
This trend holds true for many other NWFP of high commercial values exploited from Cameroon and other Africa countries.
The concern is whether one could safely say that the trade in NWFP from Cameroon follows the role of equity and fair play or just those of the ‘larger and better resourced individuals and companies’ exploiting the ‘weaker ones’. No straightforward answers are available, perhaps because of the complexities that surround the NWFP themselves. Although the above statistics do not seem to portray an equitable trade transaction scenario, it must be cautioned that they are indicative and have not been subjected to robust income analysis, to which this paper stands to recommend. Another concern is on whether some trade-related instruments govern the trade in these highly commercialized NWFP, and if so how efficient are they in ensuring equity, sustainability and improved living conditions for the producing communities? Is it the right time to make these judgments or are conclusions made from present trends likely going to be hasty and misleading? Perhaps more time and resources are needed.
However, both national and international trade-related instruments influence the trade in Prunus africana and the African grey parrots in Cameroon. Previously, the major drive had been towards the conservation of the resources rather than ensuring greater local benefits and poverty alleviation at community levels. Nowadays, the wave is fast changing towards a balance consideration on resource conservation and the welfare of the resource custodians. This is showing up in terms of participatory resource management models, empowerment of local communities through community forests and benefit sharing mechanisms. These strategies are today commonly found in both national and international strategies on NWFP management. New trends such as certification and ecolabelling are evolving with some potential to fill loopholes in some of the national and international regulations.
The global bandwagon is the implementation of ISO 9000 and 14000 families to guide best practices in business activities of any kind that leads to international trade in any product or service for high quality and environmental management standards. ISO 9000 has become an international reference for quality management requirements in business-to-business dealings, and ISO 14000 is enabling organizations to meet their environmental challenges, as they may desire to achieve and demonstrate accomplishment in environmental management. The option is for an independent third-party registration to an internationally recognized environmental management system (EMS) standard known as ISO 14001. Registration to this standard attests to an organization's commitment to comply with applicable national regulations, to assess the significant effects of its activities, and to develop or improve its EMS (ISO Brief, ud). Although traders are price-sensitive to the quality of NWFPs from Cameroon, the systematic compliance to ISO standards in relation to trade in NWFPs has not yet gained roots, consequently, no measurable impacts of the ISO standards on NWFPs stakeholders can be cited in Cameroon.
In the light of evolving trends, resource managers, governments, donors, conservation organizations and local communities must acknowledge as a guiding principle that fast and quick answers to the problems of NWFP trade and conservation are not easy to come by. Solutions have to be fashioned out following the rules of business establishments, where dispersed producers have to become organized for bulk raw material supplies to reduce transaction costs, with some protection of the weak and the ignorant, at least in the early stages. This requires investments in terms of time and money, and in terms of clearly defining the roles of the game where need arises. For example, the development of infrastructure such as accessible roads is of great importance for greater local benefits from the management of Prunus Africana.
An additional level of infrastructure is needed to coordinate collaboration between the different supplying countries and between the countries producing and marketing the finished products (Hall et al., 2000).
Sound information remains a major ingredient for sound policy formulation on the trade and conservation of NWFP, but in Cameroon there is paucity or dispersion of such information. In some cases, available information is widely dispersed and policy makers do not have access to them in forms that they can easily be assimilated. Therefore, some form of coordination and management of information on important NWFPs in Cameroon is necessary to ensure information sharing and the translation of technical results into simple forms that can be easily understood by policy-makers. In this vein, a national Prunus africana forum and a national African grey parrot forum, with mandates similar to those of the Prunus africana Working Group in Kenya may go a long way to closing information gaps.
Considering that national efforts and coordination may never suffice to control and manage a resource of international market value, a relevant international organization would be best placed to set up an international Prunus africana Accord or African grey parrot Accord to which stakeholder countries must subscribe. A major advantage of an international organization is that it can lobby for the expansion of consumer markets where it is restricted by unwarranted regulations. Such an organization should act on behalf of all these countries by taking forward an agreed collective position with regard to trade in products bought and sold, while respecting CITES provisions, as well as those of other MEAs and trade agreements. As a step towards such actions, the countries involved in the production and trade of specific NWFPs should adapt and adopt the same provisions for implementing the CITES, TRIPs, WTO, CBD and WPT regulations. For instance, the respect of CITES quota and timely reporting on export and imports of CITES Appendix II species such as the African grey parrots and Prunus africana may go a long way to improve sustainable trade. The application of these instruments would however, depend on a sound analysis of trade volumes and stricter import and export controls and coordination in both the export and import countries. A specified national agency with required resources to perform its assigned tasks would seem a necessary step ahead.
Actions can be reinforced by specifying standard conditions such as management criteria and indicators for social, ecological and economic certification of production to ensure sustainable forest management. For instance, it would be consistent with the CITES status of Prunus africana if certification was issued for bark harvested in accordance with recommended policies and protocols. Just as higher rates have been paid in Cameroon for quality bark, a higher rate could be set as an incentive to suppliers for bark certified as originating from sustainably harvested populations (Hall et al., 2000).
Overall, it may suffice to say that many changes are happening, the level of awareness is increasing and many international efforts are being geared to assist developing countries in achieving their own industrial base. The NWFP sector can benefit greatly from such opportunities if African countries can fully use them and tap the benefits by developing local technologies, increasing quality standards of products and recognizing and retaining property rights to their products.
The strategy of completely banning the trade in a highly commercialized species such as the African grey parrots and Prunus africana may not produce encouraging results because of the possibilities of going around the law by corrupt individuals and officials whose livelihoods are highly dependent on such activities. For example, a national ban on the exploitation of Prunus africana in 1992 led to the exploitation of a higher tonnage than any preceding year, and a similar experience was observed in 1993 with CITES sanction on the import of African grey parrots from Cameroon, where the trapping rate was almost doubled. Therefore, it seems raising awareness on the impact of uncontrolled trade on resources at both the producer and consumer levels, and suggesting practical alternatives and control systems could go a long way than condemning a source of livelihoods for thousands of people, as are being done by some conservation and animal welfare organizations. This cannot be achieved in a vacuum, because certain norms and procedures must be obeyed as being practiced with other natural resources such as oil and minerals. In this light, the following select suggests a number of recommendations on trade-related instruments that can lead to the improvement of the conservation and livelihoods contributions of Prunus africana and the African grey parrots trade to stakeholders.
