Taking stock of smallholder andcommunity forestry: Where do we go from here?

Montpellier, France on 24-26 March, 2010

State, Local Communities and Changing Forest Status: Exclusive Legal Dualism in Coastal

Cameroon. Case studies in the Kienké-Sud and Loungahé/Mangombè forests

By Cécile Ndjebet, Cameroon Ecology

Presentation outline

• Introduction• Case study objectives• Metholdogy• Area studied• Outcomes and products:

– Current status of the forest management units (UFA)

– Roots of the tenure conflict• Recommendations

Introduction

• This study focused on the question of forest tenure along the Cameroonian coast

• The study was carried out in two forest massifs, called Forest Management Units (UFA in French): UFA 07002 et UFA 09026

• The study aimed to take stock of the current social, administrative and legal situation in these UFAs

The study’s objectives

• Trace the historic context of management in the two forest massifs, and identify and analyze tenure problems;

• Take stock of UFA 07002 and 09026 and clarify the basis for resource and land usage;

• Gather and analyze alternative narratives from local communities regarding the current tenure situation, which will serve as main contentions in alternative argumentation forms;

• Gather and analyze other key stakeholders’ viewpoints, particularly the forest administration’s views;

• Identify policy and administrative options for alternative tenure systems, and pick out and highlight the key options;

• Envision future scenarios.

Methodology• Literature review and research

• Consultations with heads of decentralized services in the Ministry of Forests and Wildlife (MINFOF), Ministry of Land Estates and Affairs, and other technical actors

• Meetings with experts from the former ONADEF (National Office of Forest Development) and ANAFOR (National Support Agency for Forest Development)

• Socioeconomic surveys and inquiries in villages

• Historic mapping, agro-ecological mapping and social mapping of territories

• Informal interviews, direct observations, etc.

Area studied

Outcomes and Products

Loungahé/Mangombè historic profile- 1948: Decree n°264 of 10 June 1948 classifies the massif as State

Forest Reserve- Total area: 20.000 ha

- Plantations: 1.264 ha

- 1980: Forest concession is created by the decree n°80/363/PM- Total area: 100.000 ha

- Exploiter: CELLUCAM (corporation drawing on combined capital from Indonesia and Cameroon)

- 1984: The project fails and CELLUCAM closes- CPPC is created and inherits the site;

- CPCC exists only long enough to see its creation

- The massif becomes an open-access zone for forest exploiters of all types: illegal exploitation expands in scope (ongoing since about 1950)

Historic profile (2)

- 1993 (zoning plan) and 1994 ( forest law): the forest massif becomes UFA 07002

- Since 2007: Question of state’s rights in the UFA is taken up- New corporation created: Edéa Technopole Services Corporation

(ETSC): reprise du site et du patrimoine de l’ex-CELLUCAM

- 10 March 2008: convention between COMEFIN and Cameroon (Edea urban community) is signed

- March 3rd, 2010: Convention between MINFOF and ETSC is signed

Kienké-Sud Historic Profile• 1946 : Village is created, following migration from the site

of what is now HEVECAM

• 1947 : Kienké-Sud Forest Reserve is created in the northern part of village territory along the Kienké river, with a depth of 4 kms

• 1952/53 : Okoumé, Framiré and Niangon plantations are created by Mr Maillet (SFT)

• Vers 1958 : Industrial forest exploitation

• 1960 : Retrocession of the reserve from the Secretariat of State to the Department of Agriculture of Eastern Cameroon

• 1968 : New public structure created to manage the reserve, the FSF

Kienké-Sud Historic Profile (2)• 1970 : New set of plantations created

• 1970 : Corporation SOCADE undertakes transverse forest exploitation in the south of village territories

• 1974/75 : Rubber tree plantations are created across the whole southern part of village territory

• 1979: New public structure, ONAREF, is set up to replace FNFP

• 1980 : New set of plantations

• 1983 : New public structure, ONADEF, replaces ONAREF

• 2002 : Dissolution of ONADEF and creation of ANAFOR

• 2006 : CUF and industrial forest exploitation installed in the reserve

Current state of the two UFA’s

• UFA 07002: – Number of villages created: 21 villages– Area occupied by agricultural activities and

illegal exploitation: around 18% of total area, or 35,250 ha

– Area occupied by land titles : around 300 ha– Reserves and Dikous community forest:

20,119 ha

Presentation of UFA 07002

Village Locations

Reserves and Other Production Units

Agricultural Activities

Fraudulent Exploitation

Current State of the two UFA’s (2)

• UFA 09026– Number of villages: 11 in the southern part– Area occupied by agricultural activity:

• Plantations: about 17 ha• Food production and cultivation:11.77 ha• Bagyeli camps: about 8 ha

Presentation of UFA 09026

Kienké-Sud Reserve

Villages

Food Crop Agriculture

Industrial Plantations

Bagyeli Camps

Roots of the Tenure ConflictRecognition of Modern Tenure, or TOTAL power of the State and its forest

administration over the forests:

Not one UFA classification process took into account the views of local communities:

– The 14 july 1935 decree stipulates in Article 1 that forests classified like the Loungahe and Kienké-Sud reserves can only be alienated via declassification process

– The following different ordinances: n° 61/OF-14 of 16 november 1961 regarding forest regimes in Eastern Cameroon; n°73/18 of 22 may 1973 regarding national forest regimes; and n°74/2 du 06 july 1974 setting the regime for national parks and its implementing texts, could have undertaken a revision of the classification acts from the colonial period, and substantially expanded usage rights to exclusion and management rights in enclaves created following community claims. Instead, nothing was done.

– The n°80/363/PM decree grants 100,000 hectares to CELLUCAM, and as in the colonial period reduces local villages to mere spectators

Roots of the Tenure Conflict (2)

Community rights remain disregared in spite of changes in the Reserves’ status:

• The spatial usage framework and rationale introduced by the state forest regime led to the legal disqualification of customary land and forest regimes held by local communities in the Kienké-Sud and Loungahé/Mangombé forest massifs;

• Evolutions in forest and tenure regimes following the end of the colonial era have not been able—or willing—to address the problem of community rights in forests: ordinances, zoning plans, forestry law....

• The recent status change in the Loungahé et de Kienké-Sud Reserves could have been an opportunity for local communities to gain more substantial rights over their customarily held lands and forests. This was not the case, and instead more UFA’s and being created within the reserves;

Roots of the Tenure Conflict (3)

The State has always refused to allocate enclaves to local communities:

• The colonial administration’s classification of the Kienké-Sud and Loungahé Forest allocated no agroforestry zones to local communities. All promises to create such enclaves were broken;

Conflict surrounding the perception of rights:• For local communities, their rights and the State’s rights are ownership rights. • For local communities, the reproduction of state ownership is an absolute denial of their

historic, social and customary rights.• For the State, local communities have no ownership rights but rather customary rights, which

it sees as usage rights.

Communities’ contestations • In Kienké-Sud as well as in Loungahé/Mongombè, the villages are severely restricted by the

reserves (see map)• Well before the UFA 09026 classification, the very existence of the Kienké-Sud Forest

Reserve was questioned by the local communities • The decision to maintain the concession allocated in the 1980s to CELLUCAM as a UFA—

although it seemed to have fallen into administrative disuse—revivied tensions between local communities and the forest administration.

Roots of the Tenure Conflict (4) • Facing the loss of land and forests in order to profit industrial and agro-industrial forest

concessionnaires, communities are intensifying their claims• These claims do not affect the whole forest, but only certain contested spaces (see map)

The Pygmy Question:• In certain villages, a decline in Pygmy sedentarization is clear, as there are returns to the

forest;• In their discourse and represnetations, the Pymies in this zone speak of problems with

Bantus, who do not integrate Pygmies into their customary tenure regime; • In the eyes of their Bantu neighbors, Pygmies do not hold legitimate access rights to forest

lands.

Contested zones in UFA 07002

Contested zone in UFA 09026

Recommendations

UFA 07002 (including Reserves)• General Alternative

– Revise and rectify certain lines of the provisional zoning plan for Cameroonian forests in the UFA spaces

• Specific Alternatives– Partial declassification of the UFA and retrocesession of a forest area of 4 km to

village communities;

– Greater community involvement in the enclave creation and implementation process;

– Creation of community forests in reclaimed and retroceded spaces;

– Definitive registration of community forests created to benefit village communities;

– Respect for sacred sites in the Loungahé reserve (relics and trees);

– Creation of community forests for the 3 districts that share the forest massif.

Recommendations (2)

UFA 09026 (including the Kienké-Sud Reserve)• General Alternative

– Revise and rectify certain lines of the provisional zoning plan for Cameroonian forests

• Specific Alternatives– Partial declassification of the UFA and retrocession of a forest area od 1.8

km to village communities;

– Non-renewal of the provisional convention with CUF after the end of the third year (2009) and total retrocession of the forest to local villages;

– Non-renewal of the first convention of 15 years and total retrocession of the forest to local communities;

– Establishment of forest communities in the spaces retroceded to local communities (either the area of 1.8 km or the entire UFA);

– Definitive registration of the new spaces to benefit local communities.

Thank You