governance arrangements, vulnerability and forest users in the cameroon savannah
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Governance arrangements, vulnerability and forest users in the Cameroon savannah. Ingram tenure livelihoods vulnerability cameroon savanna Central African Forests conference sept 2013TRANSCRIPT
THINKING beyond the canopy THINKING beyond the canopy
Governance arrangements, vulnerability and forest users in the Cameroon savannah
Central African Forests and Institutions (CAFI) conference
Paris, September 20-21 2013
Session: Climate change and forests
Verina Ingram
THINKING beyond the canopy
Aim
Examine how beekeepers use and perceive
the forest, their vulnerabilities and pressures,
and the individual and collective
(governance) solutions used to secure their
livelihoods.
THINKING beyond the canopy
Meth
odolo
gy
Background
• Rapid assessment Key informant interviews
• Production zone selection – stakeholder interviews
Field work • Botanic assessment - forage species
• Observation - apiculture activities
VCA
• Structured interviews 375 actors, 40 processors, 10 villages & 6 market surveys
PAR data collection
• Participatory action research: problem analysis, market, participatorily strategic plans
• Capacity building events: support for group organisation
• Market price tracking (1-3 years)
Analysis • Data analysis SPSS and Excel, SWOT
• Preliminary findings verified in meetings & peer cross-checked
Outputs
• Scientific
• Articles & book chapter, value chain maps, reports (VCA, harvest impacts, botanic assessments, baseline studies)
• Public
• Policy brief, product sheet, technical datasheet, guidelines for sustainable NTFP enterprises
Lit. review
• Literature review – chains, actors, production zones, governance arrangements
2004
2012
THINKING beyond the canopy
Methods used
• Built on existing studies of,
and with, value chain actors
• Situational analysis &
snowballing to determine
chain, activities and actors
• Mix of qualitative and
quantitative methods
• Participatory action research
enabled understanding of
context e.g. governance, use,
history of chain
THINKING beyond the canopy
Results • Beekeeping an older, married, low-educated, local
Gbaya male activity – long tradition
• 68% households in Djerem involved in beekeeping
• 48% annual average h.h. income (281,000 FCFA ,433
US$)
• 87% beekeepers apiculture income 10,000 - 100,000
FCFA (111 to 223 US$)
• Alongside subsistence farming & livestock, 45% ≥ 1
income source, 10% 6 sources
• persistent activity (58% >10 years, 23% >20 years)
• 86% harvest sold, 10% consumed, 4% as gifts
• Physical & risky activity: 10 km walk, using fire, heavy
lifting
• Low value adding 28% also extract wax, 7% propolis
• 99% make traditional hives of local materials
• 20% member of association, individual sales
Beekeeper’s uses of the forest & outcomes
THINKING beyond the canopy
Results
• Vast
• Provider of forest products
• Source of dependence
• Beekeepers are users (not
conservators)
• Source of fertility (gallery forests for
maize)
• Forest’s beauty, magic and
spiritualism
• Ripe for appropriation (urbanisation
and agriculture)
• Apiculture and its trade not
responsible for degradation of forest
resources
Perceptions of the forest
THINKING beyond the canopy
Results
• Governance arrangements of whole
chain- fragmented
• Low intensity, multiple use, overlapping
customary rights
• Open access for most forest resources
• Community appropriation of valuable
resources e.g. bamboo
• No initial statutory regulation of access to
markets
• Statutory void concerning rights and rules
to commercialise apiculture products
• Voluntary arrangements to control market
- organic and ethical trade certifcaiton,
collective action & government projects
Forest governance
THINKING beyond the canopy
Results
1. Human induced changes such as increasing population pressure & infrastructure projects (+ & -)
• → deforestation & forest degradation
• → competing claims for forest resources
(fuelwood, kofia, raffia, bamboo) & uses (water, beekeeping, grazing, fertile river valleys)
2. Increasing climate changes & variability → impacting forage flowering, bush fires &
pests
3. Persistent poverty with low levels of capital and (ability to) professionalise, dependence upon natural capital → few
alternatives and low enabling environment and agents
Livelihood vulnerabilities and pressures
Multiple pressures impacting reliability,
quantity and quality of apiculture products →
apiculture income & livelihood security
THINKING beyond the canopy
Results Individual and collective adaptive & mitigative solutions to
secure livelihoods
Component
Potential adaptive response options
Responses by beekeepers and chain actors
Forest plant & animal community & biodiversity
Silviculture Regeneration, planting bamboo and raffia, planting melliferous agroforestry tree species
Habitat or species preservation (protected areas, conservation and restoration)
Adapted hive styles, hunting of pests (African palm civet).
Forest ecosystem services
Water management measures, soil and vegetation protection, sustainable farming systems, climate smart and good agricultural practices
Informal watershed and habitat protection of forest areas for beekeeping, bamboo and raffia grove protection, regulation of access to bamboo & raffia groves, tree planting, tenure claims on forest areas by beekeepers.
Human well-being Measures to decrease dependence on forest ecosystem goods and services or increase resilience of forest ecosystems, valuing economic ecosystem goods and services, recognition for food security and poverty alleviation.
Professionalization of beekeeping and marketing, collective action and formalisation of groups, increased hives, increased commodification hive products, increased commercialisation, adding-value to hive products, increased product range, expansion to new markets and consumers, selling price increase, expansion of business model to other area in Cameroon.
Institutions institutional responses to climate change and poverty mitigation , implementation of international policies, multilevel government, private sector & CSO networks, knowledge transfer and integration, revised pro-poor regulations, PES.
New chain-integrated social enterprises, voluntary Soil Association organic and fair trade certification, The Body Shop community trade certification , geographic origin certification(?), CFs(?), develop EU export rules & HMRS, new chain platforms & government supported projects, introduction standards and regulations, tenure claims on forest by beekeepers .
THINKING beyond the canopy
Recommendations for policy & practice 1. Build on customary rules for local management
2. Consistency of regulations
3. Make top-down planning more participatory
4. Acknowledge NTFP values in policy & support
5. Assess resource & develop harvesting guidelines
6. Stimulate chain platforms ‘interprofessions
7. Local community land tenure and resource rights rationalised
8. Fuse customary and statutory frameworks
9. Enact implementing texts for the Forest law
10. Dissemination of forest law & its revisions to users
11. Scope of forestry law better defined
12. Rationalise fiscal regime
13. Improve capacity of state to enforce regulations
14. State outreach to actors at beginning of chain
15. Focus support of most vulnerable and key chain actors
THINKING beyond the canopy
Conclusions
• No one institutional design or governance
arrangement that lead to sustainable livelihood
wins-wins.
• Pragmatism needed about the role of forest
products - such as apiculture - in poverty
alleviation and reconciling global environmental
values with local livelihood needs.
• Revisions to the Cameroonian regulatory
framework offer hope that formal regulations
take account of other arrangements and
produce a more complementary mix reflecting
the reality of trade from the forest to urban areas
nationally, regionally in Central Africa and
globally - with positive implications for forest
beekeepers
Maintaining a vibrant apiculture sector is
important in diversifying livelihoods, providing
subsistence and cash revenues and mitigating
vulnerability
THINKING beyond the canopy
Merci !
Aminatou Hamoa
Quality Assurance officer & Trainer – Guiding Hope organic apiculture enterprise, Cameroon
Contact: Verina Ingram [email protected]
Thanks to all interviewees especially the beekeepers, MINEPIA, MINFOF,
Guiding Hope, Denis Sonwa, Stephanie Tangkeu, Han van Dijk and Purabi Bose