chapter 10 social and organizational roots of ecological ...

need to be substantive and not procedural or instrumental. They must favor basic values andpractices, including downward accountability, local democracy, the mystique of responsibility,strong institutional arrangements at the local level, and the awareness of the common interest.The Cameroonian decentralization model, though arising from political calculation, is acourageous initiative. It has, as shown above, already registered some positive ‘infraoutcomes’.After all, decentralization is not mechanical: it is not only explainable by laws and institutionalarrangements. Its implementation depends on many variables. It therefore requires sufficienttime to develop: because of the complexity of human and institutional behavior and because ofunpredictability, variability, contingency, and change, as well as many other stimuli. In sum, it isa ‘story’ of adaptation, with successes and failures. Policy innovations and reforms are inthemselves experiments and should not be perceived as victories or crises, but, instead, as arenasof ongoing lessons and progressive learning.Forestry revenue management and sharing requires a rigorous selection of relevant mechanismsaimed at reducing the involvement of administrative authorities and other interest groups. Theinstitutionalization of a real representative democracy at the regional and local levels is also aprecondition for successful decentralization of forest management in Cameroon. Collaborativestrategies among actors, facilitated by NGOs and action-research programs, should also reinforceongoing efforts. The process of decentralization and the improvement of decentralization policiesalso depend on social theory and the strategic information made available by natural resourcesociology [Buttel, 2002: 205-10]. ]178