Two decades of implementation of community forestry in Cameroon: What changes in the livelihoods of local populations?“ - Fabrice Kengen & Guillaume Lescuyer, CIRAD Community forestry enterprises in the Congo Basin Seminar Chaired by Verina Ingram & Serge Piabou (Wagenignen UR) 10.00 -13.00 2 April 2024 NCountR Room, Impulse, Wageningen CMAPUS & online doctoral Defense Serge Piabuo “Community Forest Enterprises (CFEs) as successful social enterprises: Empirical Evidence from Cameroon” 16.00 – 17.30 2 April 2024 Omnia Auditorium, Wageningen campus & online Link to recording https://wur-educationsupport.screenstepslive.com/m/111045/l/1595365-about-recording-and-livestreaming-a-promotion-phd-defence-graduation-ceremony-inauguration-farewell-speech-or-other-public-events#where-can-i-watch-the-livestream

1. Two and a half decades of implementation of
community forests in Cameroon: What changes
in the livelihoods and in forest cover ?
Fabrice Kengne Fotso & Guillaume Lescuyer
Seminar “Community forestry enterprises in the Congo Basin”
Wageningen, April 2nd, 2024

2. Community forest (Informal) terroir
Max 5000 ha granted by the State for 25
years
No legal boundaries but legitimate “terroir”
Complex and costly procedure to request a
CF
No cost
Managed by an official community entity Regulated by families and lineages
Legal tenure on resources (but not land) Customary (informal) ownership of land
and resources
Products extracted from forest can be sold Products only for self-consumption
(according to the law)
According to a Simple Management Plan,
validated by the State
According to customary rules, with no State
control
Restriction to local uses No restriction to local uses
A Community Forest is not a customary territory

3. (Source: Lescuyer et al., 2012)
Community Forest Vs customary territory: the case
of Nkolenyeng

4. Problem statement
•An ex post assessment of
CFs’ impacts at the village
scale on
▫ Collective facilities: health,
education, water, electricity,
religion, leisure
▫ Individual well being:
housing, training, wage,
equipment, farming, NTFP
collection and small-scale
logging
▫ Forest cover

5. ❑Selection of 14 CF cases according to four
criteria: duration, dominant use, geographical
location, involvement of women
❑A set of complementary survey methods:
• Focus Group Discussion (14)
• Diagnosis of the state of collective facilities
(18)
• Individual interwiews with all available CF
managers (52)
• Individual interviews with at least 30% of
households (274)
• Restitution meetings (14)
• Assessment of forest cover evolution with the
WRI & MINFOF Interactive Forest Atlas (18)
❑4 clusters of CFs with a counter-factual
village without a CF
Methods

6. Location of the case study

7. Result – Impacts on village infrastructure
51%
12%
41%
6%
36%
19%
31%
9%
40%
4%
24%
16%
School Water Electricity Health Leisure Religion
Stated impacts of FC on collective infrastructure
Managers Households
27%
20%

8. Result – Impacts on individual wellbeing
38%
34%
18%
24%
64%
79%
20%
29%
16% 14% 14%
21%
35%
17%
Housing Farming NTFP Logging Training Wage Equipment
Stated impacts of CF on households
Managers Households 21%
39%

9. Result – Short duration of individual impacts
Community Forest
CF duration
(yr)
Impacts
duration (yr)
AFHAN 20 4
Avenir de Nkan 19 2
CADBAP 21 6
CODEL 23 6
CODEM 23 2
CODEVIE 23 5
Coeur vaillant 17 2
FOTRANGO 20 4
MPAN 17 2
PALOBA 20 3
RENOVATION 17 3
TRAN 21 2
LILMPEME 20 4
Tsoung Amande 23 3
Average 20.3 3.4

10. Result – Counterfactual analysis on housing
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5
Quality of housing (decreasing)
Villages with CF Villages without CF

11. Result – Counterfactual analysis on collective
infrastructures
0.6
0.3
3.6
2.6
6.8
0.8 1.0
1.3
0.0
3.0 2.8
10.0
1.0
1.5
0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
10.0
8.0
12.0
School Dispensary Shops Wells Electricity Sport field Church
State of collective facilities
Villages with CF Villages without CF

12. Arrondiss.
Community
Forest
Area (adm)
FC (ha)
Distance of
the CF to the
village (km)
Deforested
area(ha)
Reforested
area(ha)
Gross
deforestation
rate
Net
deforestation
rate
Djoum AFHAN 1022 2 378 12 37% 36%
Djoum Avenir de Nkan 1272 6 76 0 6% 6%
Djoum AVERAGE 1147 4 227 6 21% 21%
Djoum Opkweng 1000 4 27 0 3% 3%
Abong-mbang Tsoung Amande 5000
1
1283 89 26% 24%
Dimako PALOBA 3900 7 70 0 2% 2%
Dimako CADBAP 2970 9 1082 8 36% 36%
Dim-Abg-Doum AVERAGE 3957 6 812 32 21% 21%
Doumé Kobila 3944 6 939 52 24% 22%
Ngoyla CODEL 1300 0 193 1 15% 15%
Ngoyla CODEM 2750 0 256 4 9% 9%
Ngoyla CODEVIE 1400 0 161 0 12% 12%
Mindourou Average 1817 0 203 2 12% 12%
Mindourou Mayang 1824 0 501 2 27% 27%
Messamena Coeur vaillant 1772 0 35 0 2% 2%
Messamena FOTRANGO 911 0 31 3 3% 3%
Messamena MPAN 1251 0 45 3 4% 3%
Messamena RENOVATION 1135 0 30 1 3% 3%
Messamena TRAN 2007 0 75 0 4% 4%
Messamena LILMPEME 1385 0 45 3 3% 3%
Messamena Average 1410 0 44 2 3% 3%
Messamena Malen 3 1410 0 148 0 10% 10%
0
Seuilforêt 30%
2001-2022
Result – Impacts of CF on the forest cover

13. 21% 21%
12%
3%
3%
22%
27%
10%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Djoum Dimako Ngoyla Messamena
Evaluation of the impacts between village with CF and
village without CF
Moy. Défor. FC Moy. Défor. Contrefact
Result – Impacts on forest cover

14. • A more detailed and sophisticated analysis needs to be carried out
at council level to better specify the dynamics and understand the
causalities of the impact described in this study;
• Statistical tests to be done for significance in differences
• Estimation of the impacts of CFs on forest cover could be done
with other tools (e.g images analysis) and give nuanced results;
Limitation of the study

15. Conclusion
1. In spite of their long duration, the impacts of community forestry
on livelihoods remain, at best, weak and punctual, but the various
livelihood components have not been impacted to the same
degree ;
2. Collecting data only from volunteers runs the risk of over-
representation of CF managers and therefore biased responses.
3. Compare the results with counterfactual sites to avoid mistakenly
attributing certain effects to CF
4. Need to increase the sample in order to strenghten the
conclusion, and to extend to other countries
5. Need to complement with interviews of external support
organisations to assess the efficiency of this support

16. Thank you for your kind attention
kengnefotsofabrice@yahoo.fr guillaume.lescuyer@cirad.fr