In much of southern Cameroon, forests are inseparable from development and conservation. Villagers use the forest to supplement their livelihoods. They gather fruits and nuts, find building materials and hunt animals. Timber mills need forests to provide raw materials. And local economies need timber mills to provide jobs and generate income. Meanwhile, Cameroon’s rangers and conservationists are keeping a close eye on the forest’s valuable biodiversity.
All of these stakeholders – the logger, the gatherer and the environmentalist – are coming together to achieve a common goal, a model forest.
The project in Cameroon is part of the International Model Forest Network (IMFN), hosted by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada.
The term 'model forest' refers to partner-based approaches to sustainable forest management in areas large enough to contain the forest’s total uses and values. Imagine a large mosaic of forests, farms, protected areas, rivers and towns, and you’ll get a sense of what is meant by managing a forest’s total land uses and values.
At the heart of the model forest is the belief that forests are for people. And for the model forest to succeed, all stakeholders, from local communities to logging companies and project developers, must recognise how their activities affect the landscape and have a shared understanding of sustainable forest management.
There are about 40 model forests around the world. Two of them are in Cameroon, the only ones so far in Africa. According to IMFN executive director Peter Besseau, Cameroon’s model forests will provide a major boost to the growing international model forest network. ‘Our hope, from the beginning, has been to establish a solid footing in Cameroon as a pilot for eventual application throughout the Congo Basin,' Besseau says.
In 2003, CIFOR joined with the IMFN Secretariat, the government of Cameroon and other international and regional partners* to launch the preparations for a pilot model forest in Cameroon. By late 2004, the government had inspected ten sites and proposed Campo Ma’an and Dja et Mpomo to the IMFN in 2005.
According to CIFOR’s Chimère Diaw, who has worked on the project from day one, the fact Cameroon is the first African country to host a model forest is a tribute to the lead role it has played in developing forest policies and forestry institutions in the Congo Basin. ‘For us, model forests demonstrate the value of what CIFOR calls ACM or adaptive and collaborative management. ACM promotes stakeholder collaboration, shared learning, and mutual accountability. Many developments related to ACM have taken place in Cameroon within the broader framework of its forest reforms since the mid-1990s,’ Diaw says.
Diaw says other Central African countries are now considering model forests. ‘The Cameroon sites were selected in collaboration with the Central African Commission on Forests to serve as pilot sites for the whole Congo Basin. As lessons from these sites emerge, hopefully other governments will adapt them to their own forests. CIFOR hopes more model forests will emerge in Africa, showcasing pluralist governance and forest-based innovations, and eventually link up with counterpart activities around the world’. JR, CD, AF
*Model forest partners include the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Central African Forest Commission (COMIFAC), and the Conference of Central African Moist Forest Ecosystems.
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Cameroon’s Bagyeli pygmies have a say in Model Forest
Poor forest management poses a serious threat to thousands of years of Bagyeli nomadic culture. But CIFOR’s model forest project in Cameroon’s South Province may soon provide a solution.
For the Bagyeli, the best way to live in the forest is to be constantly on the move. They follow the animals they hunt and when all the fruit and yams have been collected in one area it makes sense to move elsewhere.
But intensive logging, agriculture and even conservation have been forcing many Bagyeli to give up their traditional way of life and move to towns or settlement camps where their skills are of little use. While outsiders profit from the forest, the Bagyeli’s rights and traditional relationship with the land are ignored.
As the governor of the South Province explains, ‘Conservation and poverty reduction contradict when people living near national parks are not allowed to enter the forest . . . They are not allowed to hunt or gather forest products and thus become more vulnerable.’
But the situation has improved for the Bagyeli living in the Campo Ma’an forest. In 2005 the Cameroon Government recognised Campo Ma’an as one of Cameroon’s two model forests. This is good news for the Bagyeli, since, as CIFOR’s Chimère Diaw says, the aim of the Model Forest is to implement sustainable forest management while accounting for community needs and ensuring ‘every actor has a say in the use of the forested landscape.’
Earlier this year, representatives from CIFOR, NGO’s, the Bagyeli community, women’s groups, agroforestry enterprises, logging companies, and municipalities met to discuss Campo Ma’an’s forest statutes.
‘Protecting the forests is something we have to do together,’ says Vincent Ovono, a Bagyeli, who presented a document explaining the Bagyeli’s views on sustainable management of their forests, which include ideas on eco-tourism and agroforestry. JR, AF |