The Rainforests of Cameroon - PROFOR

36 The Rainforests of CameroonBox 3.3 —continuedIn 1998, local people, concerned about the dwindling forest, joined forces withthe Mount Cameroon Project, the local Forest Administration, and other stakeholdersto create the Bimbia Bonadikombo Natural Resource Management Council(BBNRMC) and establish a community forest to protect and manage the remainingforest. Plans for Bimbia Bonadikombo Community Forest were developed andapproved; by August 2002, the BBNRMC was actively managing the forest.The forest occupies 3,735 hectares. Most of it—especially the northernpart—has been relatively degraded as a result of human activity, includingsubsistence farming, bush-meat hunting, fuelwood collection, and artisanallogging. The biodiversity-rich southern part of the forest (1,229 hectares) is setaside for conservation, and all extractive activities are forbidden. Volunteers delegatedby village chiefs regularly patrol the area. In 2006, income from fines andsales of confiscated products amounted to about $3,680 (CFAF 1,840,000), representingabout 45 percent of total income from permits issued for use of theforest. The BBNRMC is encouraging ecotourism and research, hoping that suchactivities will increase the benefits derived from conserving the forest.Conservation in the south is complemented by efforts to use the northernforest sustainably. Unless the northern forest areas can offer alternative livelihoodoptions, the overall conservation strategy will fail. The BBNRMC grants forestuse permits to different groups—small-scale timber cutters, charcoal burners,and fuelwood collectors, among others—based on predetermined quotas(unfortunately set in the absence of a forest inventory). Given that agricultureis the foremost threat to the forest, BBNRMC supports the adoption of agroforestryto improve yields and discourage farmers from clearing new land. Threenurseries have been built with technical and financial support from the WorldAgroforestry Centre.Clearly, management of the Bimbia Bonadikombo Community Forest occursin a complex setting—the margin of urban development, where biodiversityconservation and livelihood issues intersect in unusual ways. The current managementapproach has shown some positive impact on forest conservation,but it is increasingly obvious that these local efforts simply cannot continue forlong without external resources and partners. Given the still-limited number oftourists in the area and Delivered the extreme by The difficulty World Bank of e-library resisting to: demand for fuelwoodThe World Bankfrom Limbé, it is feared that this IP model : 192.86.100.34 is not sustainable.Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:06:18Source: Authors; Godwin and Tekwe 1998.(c) The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank