The Rainforests of Cameroon - PROFOR

104 The Rainforests of Cameroonhas grown since 2000, but no single approach to community forestry hasyet delivered the entire set of anticipated benefits. A 2006 review of communityforests led by national and international NGOs highlighted thewide disparity between outcomes envisioned in the 1994 Forest Law andactual outcomes in the field, where neither poverty reduction nor environmentallysound management goals had been met. The bottom line is that,to date, Cameroon’s few successful community forests have been heavilysupported and monitored by donors, and their sustainability remainsuncertain. Community forest revenues are often modest and do not alwaysreach the communities themselves. A cumbersome regulatory frameworkand a welter of social, economic, technical, and other constraints at thelocal level make community forestry almost unworkable.Ultimately, community forestry has a lot in common with other communityinitiatives. Some regard it as naïve to expect that it can thrive ina country where participation is only starting, administrators use publicoffice for personal gain, vested interests prevail, local governing bodiesare dysfunctional and starved for funds, and systems of traditional rightsand obligations are on the wane. Others believe that community forestrywould work if reforms had followed a better sequence (box 5.6). Whicheverstance is taken, the community forestry experience offers severalconsiderations for devising a more workable approach.“Communities” in the rainforest zone may not fit outsiders’ assumptionsabout communities and how they function. Cameroon’s “communities”are not necessarily stable, homogeneous social entities (Burnham2000; Malleson 2001; Biesbrouck 2002; Geschiere 2004). Contraryto common assumptions, the land surrounding villages is traditionallyclaimed by families, not by communities (Geschiere 2004), many ofwhich coalesced when colonial authorities brought people to live alongsideroads to provide hard labor for road maintenance (Takforyan 2001).These composite communities may not be the kind of resilient social institutionthat is so often visualized by outsiders as the backbone of communityforestry. One of the more intractable problems to be resolved,highlighted by many long-term observers, is the poor governance thatarises in communities because of conflicts between community membersand elites of different Delivered ethnic by origins The World and Bank allegiance. e-library to:The World BankIP : 192.86.100.34Tenurial issues add complexity. Mon, 09 Nov Tenurial 2009 17:06:18 arrangements that apply totrees can differ depending on where the trees are located (Vermeulenand Carrière 2001). Boundaries of “community” land are rarely defined(c) The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank