B7-6201/96-08/VIII/FOR "Implementation of community forests in the periphery of the Dja reserve" by the Faculté Agronomique de Gembloux (1996)

Objectives:

The overall objectives are:

• The implementation of a policy for sustainable management of forests and rational use of its resources.
• Development of rural population in harmony with their environment.
• The management of the Dja reserve and its periphery (projects ECOFAC, UICN-Dja and APFT).
• Community objective:
  The objective is test implementation of the new forest laws, therefore: a pilot village community that elaborates a management plan for the forest land and establishment with the relevant administration of an agreement for the management of the forest that should be renewed every two years.
  Simple techniques developed a pilot community level will then they can be generalised to other village communities, so as to disseminate the results to the whole of the forest area in Cameroon.
• Periphery area:
  The objective of the project synthesises the attempts at sustainable management tested in the community forests and the production forest.

Results:

• Scientific sector: Improve the knowledge of most actors of the focal aspects of the problem, the socio-economic structure of the community, dynamic of the population of key species, spatial dynamics of human activities. Promoting intensification and artificial regeneration for community benefit: nursery and game. Improve the value added of traditional knowledge that forest users possess (fauna, pharmaceutical). Use as a basis for the several doctoral theses and scientific publications by 6 project researchers.
• Social sector: awareness raising of the rural population in favour of community management and value added of pilot community initiatives. Organisation of the village community in a management organ based on the present social organisation. Training (men and women) in simple management techniques chosen in the pilot communities.
• Environmental sector: rehabilitation or maintenance of certain biodiversity in the village territory (indicators of specific biodiversity and ecosystems diversity).
  • Insure the regeneration of used resources, equal in quantity to those removed, within a time frame compatible with the needs of the local population and if necessary through intensification of this regeneration.
  • The whole of the area proposed fulfils its role as a buffer zone towards the Dja reserve: ecological exchanges and barrier to strong pressures.
• Economic sector: generate a rapid material advantage and if possible financial for the communtiy and each individual.
  • Insure the community of diversified and stable income sources (other than cacao, coffee and unmanaged hunting), with objective sustainable economic development.
  • Improve the value added of alternative activities to non managed hunting (vegetable products and transformation activities).
  • Commercialisation by communities of products.