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65 Jerome Lewis and Téodyl Nkuintchua
Project strengths
The results most valued by communities
were their newfound sustainable forest
management skills (mapping and monitoring), FPIC negotiations and community
protocols, and a better understanding of
their role in, and responsibility to, defend
their rights to the forest. During FPIC
sessions, such issues and concepts were
extensively discussed, and key for effective
dialogue with other stakeholders. Communities especially appreciated the FPIC
process as a new and empowering tool:
being explicit about their right to refuse
makes discussions or bargaining with
outsiders more equal.
The advocacy capacity-building has
helped ILCs to understand how to present
their issues. ILC representatives appreciated that the project made advocacy with
government and other actors an integral
part of the project process. Though focused
on illegal logging, ILCs used the meetings
with government officials to discuss other
issues related to government-imposed
restrictions on their land or their expulsion
from some forests. Community participants
reported that they feel more confident
about claiming and asserting their rights
despite the National Zoning Plan having
ignored these. Their engagement has
helped them to understand the Forestry
Law and learn new skills and concepts to
better understand their current situation.
While not the first mapping project for
some participating communities, most
people now understood what maps mean
and what they can be used for: in particular, to resist others trying to exploit their
territory and resources. Understanding the
role of the icon-based GPS was central to
making FPIC more concrete. Communities
gave their consent hoping to direct a project, and they did so successfully, something
to which they are unaccustomed. The project was also the first time many
communities had used computers. More
than 100 people were trained to use
computers and 38 became specialist
community cartographers. Following their
request, the project also provided certificates attesting to their new skills.
The protocol was also very useful to
promote community organisation. Most
eastern-region communities have weak
political organisation (see Bahuchet, 1991).
CBOs and other development partners see
this as a key barrier to development. It is
often difficult to attract more than just the
chief to ‘participate’ in a project. Community protocols helped to address this major
issue by facilitating the community to
better organise their participation.
Challenges
FPIC processes and community protocols
are powerful tools. But there are precautions. Though recognising how important
the project could be in future, communities have developed long-term
‘patron-client’ relationships with CBOs.
The first FPIC consultations were particularly difficult. Some ILCs granted their
FPIC not because they understood the
proposition, but because they trusted the
people involved. Impoverished communities often agree to projects and activities
that may be against their long-term interests. CBO staff had to be very careful not to
raise expectations that community
members would earn direct incomes from
the project.
This raises ethical issues concerning the
balance between compensating participants and ensuring neutrality when
negotiating consent. CBOs decided not to
compensate so that communities were not
motivated by insignificant financial benefits. This partly explains why it was difficult
to involve all community leaders in elaborating the community protocols, but this
was advantageous where leaders who were
more concerned with personal gain chose
not to participate.
Some community members were
engaged in conflicting activities: that of
documenting illegal logging, while also
assisting the loggers. Most communities