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Institutional choice and local legitimacy in community-based forest management: lessons from Cameroon
- H. CAROLYN PEACH BROWN, JAMES P. LASSOIE
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- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 37 / Issue 3 / September 2010
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 12 August 2010, pp. 261-269
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Decentralization of forest management has become a common policy globally which has allowed communities to regain rights removed through colonization and central state management of forests. However, socioeconomic and environmental outcomes of such community-based forest management schemes have been mixed. Studies have shown the importance of institutions in influencing the success of these new governance arrangements. Based on an extensive literature review supplemented by qualitative research, using focus groups and semi-structured interviews, conducted in nine villages in the humid forest zone comprising three community forests, this research investigated the successes and challenges from decentralization of forest management in Cameroon. A key constraint on success was the inappropriate institutional structure at the local level with responsibility to manage community forests. Community forest management committees with no internally recognized legitimacy and dominated by local elites had replaced roles once played by traditional authorities. Qualitative research showed that in the humid forest zone of Cameroon, the system of accountability for forest resources, prior to the enactment of community forest legislation, included those with historical traditional cultural authority, in the form of clan or lineage heads, as well as the village chief, a legacy of colonial power. Village chiefs or other members of the village council are also selected on the basis of their good moral character. Community forest management committees that are a hybrid of customary authorities and other representatives of the population chosen following the criteria for local legitimacy may capture the best of historical social regulation and build on it so that the local committee may be seen as being accountable to the local population. Since such hybrid institutions are not without their risks, it is important that these institutions be accountable to a local democratic government to further increase their transparency and accountability. Models of community-based natural resource management that incorporate culturally appropriate requirements of legitimacy and accountability in crafting local institutions may have more success in accomplishing both socioeconomic and environmental goals.
Farmer attitudes towards conservation in Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park, Bhutan
- SONAM WANGYEL WANG, JAMES P. LASSOIE, PAUL D. CURTIS
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- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 33 / Issue 2 / June 2006
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 20 July 2006, pp. 148-156
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The attitudes and feelings of people concerning conservation policies and wildlife conflicts affect their behaviour, and understanding this is important in involving local people in conservation planning and decision-making processes. This paper examines these important issues in Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park, located in central Bhutan. A survey of 274 house-holds was carried out to assess farmers' perceptions of the influence of Park management policies and protection regimes on traditional resource uses, and their attitudes towards the Park and conservation policies set forth in the Forest and Nature Conservation Act of 1995, integrated conservation development programmes (ICDPs) and wildlife conservation, and determine how demographic and socioeconomic variables influence these attitudes. Among local farmers, 52.2% disliked the Park and the Conservation Act, and 67.5% supported exterminating problem wildlife. Negative attitudes were linked to loss of resource use rights, livestock depredation and crop damage, lack of compensation strategies and exclusion of farmers from the Park's planning processes. However, 76.3% of the respondents appreciated the Park's development programmes, the positive attitudes associated with an expectation that significant economic benefits would be available from ICDPs sponsored by the Park. Empowerment of local communities associated with monetary benefits from non-timber forest products and compensation for loss of crops and livestock were emphasized by more than 70% of the respondents. These attitudes were related to age and literacy of the respondents, number of livestock owned and size of land holdings. Though important to the future of Bhutan's parks, study results also have wider applicability to conservation professionals throughout the developing world for resolving human-land use conflicts and involving local farmers in the protection of nature.