list of figures - Terry Sunderland

from the informal forest economy and into the formal forestry sector; a system
renowned for its inequity (de Fretas, 1990).
In Africa, until recently, no cultivation of any of the species of commercial
importance has been undertaken, nor has there been any proven history of indigenous
cultivation. However, the regular supply of raw cane to a thriving domestic cottage
industry has been affected by over-harvesting and poor management of the wild
resource to such an extent that, in order to mitigate the effects of this scarcity, many
calls have been made by both government and development agencies for the inclusion
of African rattans into cultivated systems. It is only recently that the commercially
important species have been identified and subsequent work into the cultivation of
rattans of Africa has led to the development of a rattan arboretum at the Limbe
Botanic Garden, Cameroon. More recently, in collaboration with the Cameroon
Development Corporation, this propagation work has also resulted in the
establishment of a one-hectare trial of Laccosperma secundiflorum in an obsolete
rubber plantation. Now that the cultivation requirements of the commercial species are
understood, feasibly, it is now possible to incorporate these species into a wider range
of cultivation systems.
9.6. CONCLUSION
The crux of the sustainability issue may be summarised as follows: How is it
possible to create the conditions to enable the sustainable utilisation of the rattan
resource, whilst maintaining, or increasing, profits and benefits?
Given an appropriate management regime, the ecology and nature of rattans make
them one of the few forest products that can be harvested sustainably. Rattan
exploitation, be it in natural forest or in agroforestry systems, relies on an intricate and
multi-layered ecological balance between the rattan resource and the trees that are
needed to support it. There are very few products of such high value that require the
maintenance of a forest analogue. The fact that rattan is fast growing, high yielding
and can be harvested on relatively short rotations also makes it attractive for
sustainable management regimes; the impact of harvesting can be measured and
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