1. Governance of Forests Initiative
(GFI) Cameroon
WRI Partner Meeting
Washington DC, May 2012

2. GFI Cameroon:
Findings, research and activities
• WHO ARE WE ?
GFI CAMEROON Coalition is made of two organisations,
namely Bioresources Development and Conservation
Programme Cameroon (BDCPC) and Cameroon Ecology
(Cam-Eco)
BDCPC’s mission is linking conservation with economic and
health needs of the local population – has been doing this
for 18 years
Cam-Eco’s mission is capacity building for rural communities
– has 12 years of field experience

3. Locations of the research areas

4. Location of Research Areas (Continued)

5. GFI Cameroon: main objective
• Strengthen forest governance in order to
promote sustainable management of forests and
strengthen rights of forest communities
• Specifically:
– Ensure that good governance principles
(transparency, accountability, coordination and
participation) are integrated into the development
and implementation of policies that impact forests

6. Activities
• Detailed assessment of 37 indicators of Forest
Management and Forest Revenue and 19 Land
Use Planning
• Identification of key respondents/ informants :
administration, private, civil society, local
populations, elected people (Mayors and
Councilors) ….
• Literature reviews, legal analyses and
stakeholder interviews

7. Main findings
Researchers identified 4 main findings that are also
priority challenges:
1) Land allocation rules and procedures
• Many laws and policies governing land allocation in
Cameroon have not been subject to a public legislative
debate but take the form of presidential ordinances or
decrees.
• The legal and institutional framework identifies several
ministries with authority and interests in land.
• Land use planning processes conducted in the 1990s are
out of date and do not reflect current threats
• Large scale agriculture
• Hydropower
• Mining

8. Main findings (2)
2) Participation and access to information
• Forest sector stakeholders—including local
communities, local government , Mayors and
parliamentarians—are left out of land use decisions
that impact forests.
• Information on proposed land use changes is often
not available until after the decision has been made.
• There are no clear rules for national or strategic level
participation
• Local consultation requirements exist for classifying
forests but are not well implemented
• Lack of clear procedures and monitoring requirements
• No accountability for community input

9. Main findings (3)
3) Very poor capacities among forest
stakeholders
• MINFOF local services as well as local communities
and Mayors lack capacities to implement laws and
policies that govern forest management and forest
revenues in Cameroon
• This gives way to poor governance practices such as
corruption and mismanagement of forest revenues

10. Main findings (4)
4) Monitoring and oversight mechanisms
• Monitoring is primarily focused on timber extraction in
concessions and at checkpoints, but forest officers must
cover large territories
• Monitoring and oversight of how communities are
consulted or whether they receive funds is lacking
• Communities lack the right to seek redress if they do
not receive their 10% of revenues from forest area
logging fees

11. Some perspective
These Four main areas need to be strengthened in order to
protect forests and recognize the rights of forest
communities:
1- Transparency of forest land allocation (e.g. for forest
management, agriculture, mining) rules and procedures
2- Participation of local communities in forest land allocation
decisions, as well as in the management of forests and forest
revenues
3- Capacity building of MINFOF services, local communities (men
and women) as well as elected people especially Mayors and
councilors)
4- Monitoring , enforcement and oversight of forest use

12. Main Activities 2012-2013
• GFI Working Group
– Convene actors to build consensus on priority
challenges
– Develop an action plan
• REDD+
– Cameroon developing its Readiness Preparation
Proposal
– Engagement with REDD+-Climate Change Civil
Society Platform