156
65 Jerome Lewis and Téodyl Nkuintchua
Figure 1: Project process
Step 1: Community
participation
Step 2: Documenting
rights to the forest
Community consultation
Collecting geo-referenced data
• Informing them of the project’s
risks and advantages
• Building FPIC and community
protocols
• Collecting data with iconbased GPS
• Discussing and correcting
maps with communities
Step 3: Organising
communities for advocacy
Step 4: Advocacy
Building a network of
community representatives
Presenting maps to other forest
stakeholders
• Sharing experiences between
communities
• Developing shared messages
for advocacy
• Local-level meetings with
forest stakeholders
• National-level meeting with
relevant government authorities
Step one: Community participation
This crucial step establishes FPIC agreements and community protocols that are
the basis for organising project activities.
The standard approach was to inform the
community a few days before the meeting,
to gather in a place chosen by community,
and to encourage women’s participation.
Where the Baka and Bantu shared the
same territory, CBOs held meetings with
each community separately.
To ensure informed consent, discussions began by exploring the project’s
objectives, advantages, risks and prospects
in ways that community members could
understand. These discussions went differently according to the ILC. The indigenous
Baka communities have a non-hierarchical
egalitarian social organisation where
women and men have equal say in community decisions. In contrast, Bantu societies
are hierarchical and male-dominated.
Efforts had to be made to ensure women’s
points of view were taken into consideration, and to avoid elite capture. Similarly,
Bantu and Baka had to be worked with
separately to ensure the Bantu did not
marginalise the Baka during the discussions.
A key characteristic of FPIC agreements and community protocols is their
dynamism: consent can be withdrawn,
partially or entirely, and the protocol can
be updated to change what data is
collected, who fills the various roles, incorporate newcomers etc. From the start,
communities were informed that they can
give, refuse or withdraw their consent for
the whole project or for certain activities,
at any time.
Two FPIC forms were discussed and
explained before being signed. One was for
the consent of the community, the second
for the consent of the individuals designated by the community to do the
cartography. Community-nominated leaders signed the forms on behalf of the whole
community. But since cartographers would
be involved in time- and energy-consuming activities collecting data designated by
the community, they signed as individuals.
The CBO then supported the community to develop a community protocol (CP),
inspired by the biocultural community