Ottotomo (Cameroon)

The MLA approach was tested in a community near the small (30 km2) forest reserve of Ottotomo in south-west Cameroon. In this area, population pressure leads people to claim access to remaining old growth forests such as reserves. Previous CIFOR work (although published later) had examined the relationship of local communities and local administration (Jum and Oyono, 2005), and the MLA approach was intended to help understanding of local perceptions and needs, in order to benefit local management.

The research took place with the Ewondo inhabitants of the village of Nkolbibanda (27 households), whose traditional territory used to extend into Ottotomo until it was established as a reserve by the French colonial authorities. Livelihoods depend on cassava-based swidden agriculture and a number of non-timber forest products (NTFP) for income, food and medicine. Food production is mostly a women’s activity. Some men have small cocoa plantations. Nkolbibanda’s territory covered between 10-15 km2 (estimated from community mapping).

Until the time of the study, the National Forestry Development Agency (ONADEF), under the Ministry of Water and Forests (MINEF), was in charge of reserve management. Unfortunately, an ongoing reorganisation process at the time of the study reduced former ONADEF staff to technical unemployment and reserve management responsibility unclear.

CIFOR conducted the four-week study with the help of the local NGO Association Terre et Développement. The original methods were adjusted to the local natural and socio-cultural context. The soil study was omitted because staff and funds were not available. People were very suspicious at first, having experienced broken trust and theft of resources with previous research and development groups. Internal conflicts also played a role. It helped to repeat the same explanations to the same questions over and over again and to work with old (and respected) men in field activities. This contributed a great deal to gaining people’s trust and interest.

Studies of people’s uses of forest species had been conducted before in Cameroon, as well as a study that assessed the biodiversity value of land types from a local perspective, based on criteria for biodiversity defined by local people. (Lawrence et al., 2000).

Through the different scoring patterns of older and younger groups and discussions with these groups, the study provided indications of changing attitudes towards, and knowledge of, the forested environment. Growing access to information, schooling and health care influence people’s aspirations and perceptions. Local development NGO’s have promoted a more commercial agriculture. Larger fields, sometimes using fertilisers, are now being cultivated for the market by groups of people, including younger men. External influences, such as the promotion of NTFP harvesting and trade by NGO’s and researchers seem to encourage people to see the forest and forest resources more as commodities (Sassen and Jum 2007).

Most youths, only live in the village during school holidays and this made them less interested in and knowledgeable about the forest and related traditions. Most aim to work in town after school. They nevertheless said they learned about their territory from the community map. The implications of these changes for traditional knowledge, cultural identity and for forest resource use are important yet hardly known.

The intention had been to use the results in follow-up work by CIFOR’s Adaptive and Collaborative Management team on local participation in the management of the reserve, but lack of funding meant this did not happen. Plans to involve local communities in decision-making about the forest reserve or even set up a community-managed area were unfortunately halted because of the unclear situation with regard to the reserve’s management.