Formes d’action collective pour la gestion locale de la forêt camerounaise : organisations « modernes » ou institutions « traditionnelles » ?

Abstract

The involvement of rural population is now a compulsory step of any forest management in Central Africa. In Cameroon, both logging concessions and community forests provide interesting guidelines on how to commit the local stakeholders into the forest management process. These “participatory” approaches request an identification and then an “officialization” of the “local communities” under the form of constituent organisations (association, committee,...). However, the creation of constituent institutions often rests on fallacious assumptions regarding the local modes of using the forest resources. The major bias of such formal village organisation is to be built aside from kinship systems that remain the key variable to analyse and understand the forest uses. If local population is to become an essential stakeholder of sustainable forest management, the legal village organisations must be founded on customary socio-political institutions.

Keywords

• tropical forest
• Cameroon
• participatory management
• local population