Held in the CIFOR’s Yaoundé offices in May, the workshop brought together scientists, officials, and representatives of civil society and the logging industry.

Effective forest management involves a variety of factors, including macroeconomics, government policies, wood markets, certification, indigenous rights, equity, gender, and employment. Because these factors vary so much, different groups develop different standards for themselves, making it difficult to establish a common ground.

The problem is that while the forest is one entity, it holds many values for different people. Hence the need for common standards that can help stakeholders assess their respective influences on the forest. The situation is further complicated by the fact that scientists also develop standards, but their validation and implementation require political recognition through a negotiated process.

To try to harmonize the different sets of C&I and integrate them with the reference standard of the African Timber Organization and the International Tropical Timber Organization (ATO/ITTO), an ATO ITTO project was established in which CIFOR worked with the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

According to Mireille Zoa of CIFOR’s governance programme in Cameroon, the initiative involved a three-stage process. “First we selected a group of experts and gathered numerous papers to use as background material. Then we established a group of evaluators or validators. Then we invited everyone to a two-part workshop.” Mireille Zoa said.

This approach brought together experts who could develop preliminary guidelines while allowing other forest stakeholders to contribute their views. Stakeholders included economic operators who may eventually use the standards, representatives of civil groups interested in the social and environmental aspects of forests, and government staff who will have to agree on the final management standard. The CIFOR workshop aimed at finalizing a set of principles, criteria and indicators that could serve as a national platform for sustainable forest management. While this set contains regionally adopted principles and criteria, it does not have fully developed Indicators, sub-indicators and verifiers. The aim of the meeting in Yaoundé was to develop these. Similar measures will be undertaken in other countries in West and Central Africa.

In the first part of the workshop, discussions among a multi-disciplinary team of eight experts generated a new set of indicators and sub-indicators. This work was derived from existing national material, in particular material from the National Working Group on Certification and the former forest management and development agency, ONADEF.

According to Anne Marie Tiani of CIFOR’s governance program, “knowledge of the Cameroonian context enriched the basic set of materials, making it more suitable for national conditions. This list was then reviewed by a group of 30 representatives from various domains in the forest sector.”

Opening the second half of the workshop, the Secretary-general of the Ministry of Environment and Forests praised the efforts of the various government, national and international institutions to promote sustainable management in Cameroon. He went on to say he expected the workshop to produce a consensus document that could be submitted to the Ministry for consideration.

As expected, the review of all the indicators and sub-indicators proposed by ATO/ITTO led to the adoption and re-wording of some items, the cancellation of others, and the introduction of some completely new ones. Participants suggested a series of improvements, such as integrating clauses relating to child labor in forest concessions. Also suggested were the inclusion in the process of broader economic operators, elements from existing sets of indicators and local managers. The participants then had a month to make their final comments in writing. The report of this first workshop was submitted to and accepted by ATO/ITTO, in anticipation of future steps and submission to the government.

The next step will be to identify verifiers for the indicators and sub-indictors at multi-stakeholder meeting in the near future. Participants considered this as essential to correctly defining the data and information required to verify that sustainable management steps are implemented. Eventually the complete final set will be field-tested and refined and then submitted to the Ministry for official validation. The door will then be opened for country-wide application and verification of consensual standards that can be used to assess the sustainability of forest management. AMT, CD.