Valuation de la mise en œuvre de la gestion décentralisée des forêts communales au Cameroun. cas de la forêt communale de Mengong et Biwong-bulu.

Abstract

Cameroon embarked on reforms to its forest policy in the early 1990s. These reforms followed more than a century of colonial and postcolonial forest policies, characterized by highly centralized forest management. They resulted in the implementation in 1994 of a law establishing the decentralization of forest management. Thanks to this law, the communes and the village communities manage forests in order to ensure their conservation and to derive substantial income from them to develop their localities. The objective of our study is to assess the implementation of forest decentralization in the southern region of Cameroon, using governance as an analytical framework. The methodology implemented is multidisciplinary. First, we presented the state of exploitation in the municipal forests of Mengong and Biwong Bulu, then analyze the involvement of local residents in the management of the communal forest massif. We also analyzed the induced socio-economic and ecological effects of income from the communal forest. And so we made a comparative study of the management of the FCle of Mengong and Biwong-Bulu to that of Dimako. The results of our study indicate the state of logging in the municipal forests of Mengong and Biwong-Bulu is 972 stems felled during the three months of data collection for a total gross volume 4,629,611 m3 estimated at 1,085,057,709,666 FCFA with a slaughter tax of 43,242,308.39 FCFA. After treatments of these species, the treatment volume is 4592.611m3 estimated at 1065513308 FCFA. Surveys through interviews have revealed that forest regeneration is not the concern of managers of this FCle. The involvement of local populations in the management of the communal forest is 25% through activities such as: forest inventories and timber harvesting. The income realizations are subdivided into two groups, those which are said to be individual, that is to say derived from the wages received by working in the FCle (construction of huts, purchase of school supplies and dowry, creation of space or agriculture or other activities income-generating). For the part of municipal management that only 5% of the investment budget is kept for socio-economic achievement. And finally a comparative discussion was made between the FCle of Mengong and Biwong-Bulu. The example of Dimako communal forest shows, despite certain shortcomings, that communal forestry can produce better results than those obtained within the framework of Mengong and Biwong-Bulu communal forest governance.