l Accessible technologies and FPIC: independent monitoring with forest communities in Cameroon 163
chose strong people with good forest skills
to be their cartographers. These men had
given their formal FPIC to participate. Yet
sometimes they also earned money transporting planks from the forest for
small-scale illegal loggers. Due to a strong
sharing ethic, often these were not seen as
opposed activities.
This challenge for CBOs was complex.
Should they forbid these individuals from
participating, going against community
decisions? Or, ask the nominated cartographers to renounce an important
income-generating activity? Debates raged
over people’s need for short-term benefits
against long-term forest outcomes. Some
CBOs suggested that cartographers be paid
what they earned for carrying timber
during the project. Others pointed out that
projects are always short-term, compared
to people’s lives, and so awareness-raising
about sustainable forest management
should be reinforced. Others suggested that
only people who never participate in illegal logging be involved, even if this went
against the community’s decision. A
consensus has not been possible on these
issues.
Women’s participation was also limited.
Out of 40 community cartographers only
three were women. During advocacy meetings only one woman participated.
Explanations included: too much time
away from children; men would not allow
their wives to join a male team; long
distances to walk; communities tended to
nominate men; there was only one GPS
device per community. CBOs tried to
address this in one village by asking women
what they wanted to be mapped. With
hindsight, it would have been better to have
fewer communities involved so that two
GPS devices were available per community,
enabling women to form their own
mapping groups. This principle was
applied to deal with discrimination against
the indigenous groups by local farmers,
and should have been applied to avoid
gender bias.
Sustaining these activities over the long
term remains to be established. This project was designed to prove the concept and
develop a model for community engagement in forest monitoring that could be
integrated into national FLEGT monitoring and for timber traceability. However,
much has changed institutionally and at
the national level. While Forestry Ministry
staff responded positively to the project
process, they have expressed no plans to
support its continuation. Similarly, it
remains to be seen if the new leadership at
Helveta still considers monitoring by ILCs
as an integral part of their traceability
system.
Communities have led the project but
cannot currently directly manage their data
without Internet access and electricity.
Communities have a final map in their
village, but communicating new possible
uses for the data to them is only possible
through CBOs. In future, we hope that data
copies are also left with each community so
that they can reconfigure it to support their
claims in new contexts.
A last key challenge is the place of FPIC
in Cameroon’s legislation. The State still
claims the forest as its own. If it approves
timber companies, conservation organisations or mining companies with the right
to extract resources from ILC’s land,
outsiders have no obligation to seek
approval from ILCs, and in practice never
do. Although ILCs intend to assert their
right to give or refuse their FPIC to activities on their land, national legislation does
not acknowledge this right explicitly
despite its international obligations to do
so. However, in certain domains such as the
Forest Stewardship Council’s forest certification scheme, FPIC is the standard timber
companies must now achieve in their relations with ILCs.
Prospects for other projects
This project illustrates the advantages of
applying a FPIC process in conjunction
with community protocols to ensure that