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Accessible technologies
and FPIC: independent
monitoring with forest
communities in
Cameroon
13
by JEROME LEWIS and TÉODYL NKUINTCHUA
Introduction
The equatorial forests of eastern Cameroon
are home to many tens of thousands of
indigenous Baka pygmies and other forestdependent farming communities, mainly
the Bantu. They are highly dependent on
forest resources for their cultural identity
and livelihoods: foods such as animal
protein, vegetables and fruit, craft materials for tools and house building, medicinal
and sacred plants. Due to their extreme
poverty they are very vulnerable to changes
that affect their access to forest resources
(Abega and Bigombe, 2005). The State has
maintained colonial laws attributing the
nation’s forests to their control despite local
peoples’ claims to the land. With the
government’s introduction of a National
Zoning Plan in the early 1990s, indigenous
and local communities (ILCs) found themselves with sometimes drastically reduced
territories and large areas of their former
land rented to outsiders such as timber
companies, miners, safari hunters and
conservation organisations, with exclusive
rights over resources in these areas. With
Box 1: Key problems facing forest
dependent communities in Cameroon
• Substantial reduction of customary territory in the
National Zoning Plan
• Expulsion from their customary territory in
‘managed forests’ (national parks, wildlife reserves,
timber concessions, etc.)
• Restrictions on access to forest resources
• Weak communication between forest communities
and other forest stakeholders concerning forest
management
• Rapid and illegal logging
• Destruction of key resources during logging
often greatly reduced territories, and
denied access to certain key resources, ILCs
are increasingly vulnerable to hardship.
Cameroon’s forests are subject to extensive legal and illegal logging by both artisan
timber pirates and industrialised timber
companies (REM, 2009). ILCs depend on
many key tree species such as sapelli, moabi
or ebony for fruit, caterpillars, medicines
and oil. Until now, they have been unable
to address this serious threat to their future.
Noticing the link between weak governance
and illegal logging, the European Union