Mbolo C . Yufanyi Movuh

This paper is concomitant with our comparative study analysis of the interests and power of the stake-holders involved in Community Forestry (CF) in six countries. The study hypothesises that, “governance processes and outcomes in CF depend mostly on interests of the powerful external stakeholders”. For this paper which is on CF in Cameroon, the study hypothesizes that, “Power is a hidden factor in Develop-ment cooperation”. Based on political theories, the paper uses the “actor-centered power ” (ACP) concept of the Community Forestry Working Group (CFWG) in Göttingen, Germany, the post-development the-ory and empirical findings, to back up the assertations made in the study through the analysis of thirteen different CFs in the South West region (SWR) of Cameroon. It analyzes the empirically applicable ACP concept, that consists of three elements: trust, incentives and coercion and at the same time connects these elements with the post-development theory. The elements were derived f...

This book presents theories and methods which enable a better comprehension of how powerful stakeholders influebce forest policy with community forestry as concrete example. Community forestry is being propagated all over the world by researchers, western bilateral organisations, NGOs and international institutions as a bottom-up model for community participation in forest and wildlife management especially in the tropical parts of the world. Academic and empirical publications analysing community participation in forest management have laid more emphasis on mainstream social and political theories and less on critical theories. Many publications highlight the importance of community forestry worldwide while at the same time question ist successes. The book will contribute to the scientific discourse while analyzing forest policy in Cameroon through the example of community forestry. Power being the core of the analysis as a driving factor fo forest policy in Cameroon, the book ques...

A sound empirical basis is of high importance for applied research in forest policy despite empirical methods increasing the resources needed for research. Especially in developing countries, the extensive needs of field research might exceed the available resources. A sequence consisting of a quantitative preliminary survey – qualitative study – quantitative follow up study is recommended in the literature as an efficient methodological strategy. This paper investigates how to diminish resources by means of the sequence design and discusses how to keep a high research quality using the example of comparative power analysis in community forestry. The sequence design is applied in seven countries studies from which are two are already successfully completed (Nepal, published by DEVKOTA, 2010 and Java-Indonesia, published by MARYUDI, 2011). The preliminary quantitative survey is used to identify the group of most powerful actors for each community forest. The measurement validity, mea...

This paper reconstructs and analyzes the establishment of the Community Forestry (CF) processes in Cameroon, questioning the extent to which the CF models can act as a decentralization and devolution tool. It includes community based natural resource management through programs/projects emphasizing biodiversity conservation and sustainable forest management directly involving the local communities. Thirteen communities were explored in the South West Region (SWR) of Cameroon. Samples selection was based on information about recent activities of the communities in the CF process. From this population, a simple random selection and later quantitative and qualitative interviews were carried out with more than 70 different stakeholders through their networking and interest representation in CF. Analysis show that the CF process is centralized, slow, long, complex and expensive, making it difficult for local communities to be an active part in policy implementation. Results also confirm that decentralization and devolution for sustainable local forest governance could offer the communities an opportunity to derive livelihoods from their forests, but the models and processes have also inhibited them through centralized control of the state and its development partners. Furthermore, it shows that CF as a decentralization tool has not really functioned.

This paper is concomitant with our comparative study analysis of the interests and power of the stake-holders involved in Community Forestry (CF) in six countries. The study hypothesises that, “governance processes and outcomes in CF depend mostly on interests of the powerful external stakeholders”. For this paper which is on CF in Cameroon, the study hypothesizes that, “Power is a hidden factor in Develop-ment cooperation”. Based on political theories, the paper uses the “actor-centered power” (ACP) concept of the Community Forestry Working Group (CFWG) in Göttingen, Germany, the post-development the-ory and empirical findings, to back up the assertations made in the study through the analysis of thirteen different CFs in the South West region (SWR) of Cameroon. It analyzes the empirically applicable ACP concept, that consists of three elements: trust, incentives and coercion and at the same time connects these elements with the post-development theory. The elements were derived from the basic assumptions on power made by Max Weber in political sciences and Max Krott in forest policy. The study confirms the existence of powerful internal and external stakeholders that influence CF in Cameroon and aims to em-power important but marginalised communities. It concludes that, CF as a development instrument to al-leviate poverty and increase livelihood while sustainably managing the forest has actually not brought significant or meaningful development to the targeted sector of the society Keywords: Community Forestry; Devolution; Power; Development; Post-Development; Theory; Trust; Incentive; Coercion

In literature on Natural Resource Management related policies in Africa and Cameroon in particular, Colonial heritage was defined and identified. The question of this paper is whether "community forestry" which promotes giving back the forest to people breaks with this tradition. The key elements of Colonial heritage in resource management were deduced from literature. Based on these benchmarks the program and practice of community forestry in Cameroon were evaluated. Data about community forestry in Cameroon was collected in 10 selected communities in 2009/10. Today in practice community forestry favors techno-scientific knowledge about the forest, separate nature from human life, is a bureaucratic controlled engagement with nature and is aimed to make nature and people productive. The benchmark identifies a strong Colonial heritage within community forestry in Cameroon and questions whether the aim of including the local people in forest management, correcting their previous exclusion by the Colonial policy in the management of their forest resources, thus, the self determined life of people within the forest can be reached.

A sound empirical basis is of high importance for applied research in forest policy despite empirical methods increasing the resources needed for research. Especially in developing countries, the extensive needs of field research might exceed the available resources. A sequence consisting of a quantitative preliminary survey – qualitative study – quantitative follow up study is recommended in the literature as an efficient methodological strategy. This paper investigates how to diminish resources by means of the sequence design and discusses how to keep a high research quality using the example of comparative power analysis in community forestry. The sequence design is applied in seven countries studies from which are two are already successfully completed (Nepal, published by DEVKOTA, 2010 and Java-Indonesia, published by MARYUDI, 2011). The preliminary quantitative survey is used to identify the group of most powerful actors for each community forest. The measurement validity, meaning the degree of agreement of measurement and theory, is kept high by simplifying the hypothesis down to the claim that a group of powerful actors exists. The reliability of the survey is strengthened by using, for each actor, the external estimate of his power by the other actors in the network. Nevertheless, the reliability is relatively low due to the use of standardized questions only, but it is sufficient to indicate who the actors of the powerful actors group are. The follow-up qualitative power survey ascertains the power resources of the strong actors which have been identified as such. It applies a complex hypothesis about actor- centered power which involves the three power elements of coercion, incentives and trust. Reliability is high due to such multiple empirical resources as are observations, interviews and documents. The data of the qualitative survey is used to improve the quantitative data of the preliminary survey. Finally, a comparative quantitative analysis of the power of actors in community forestry for all researched countries is conducted using the improved data. This analysis tests complex hypotheses which involve the power of different actors. The actors are differentiated using theoretically meaningful terms from which we can derive hypotheses for the empirical tests. In particular, the theories about bureaucratic politics and interest groups can deliver hypotheses about the power relations of these actors, which are then particularly suitable for the quantitative test. The results show that the sequence survey can reduce the resources needed by about half. Nevertheless, the validity can be kept up by formulating hypotheses of different complexity and sufficient reliability can be ensured by improving the data step by step by means of the follow-up survey.

Evaluations on community forestry outcomes are important to observe whether the program community forestry produces what it has promised. For the evaluation -as an alternative to the comprehensive criteria and indicators on sustainable community forestry-, we propose an approach based on the core policy objectives of the program. In fact, community forestry is very much connected to the following three objectives of: 1) alleviating the poverty of forest users, 2) empowering them, and 3) improving the condition of the forests. Based on field tests in two community forests in Indonesia, the focus on the core policy objectives appears to provide a more practical approach than the use of complex criteria and indicators. We conclude that our approach allows rapid evaluations and eventually reduces the associated costs and time without compromising the goals of the evaluation.

This book presents theories and methods which enable a better comprehension of how powerful stakeholders influebce forest policy with community forestry as concrete example. Community forestry is being propagated all over the world by researchers, western bilateral organisations, NGOs and international institutions as a bottom-up model for community participation in forest and wildlife management especially in the tropical parts of the world. Academic and empirical publications analysing community participation in forest management have laid more emphasis on mainstream social and political theories and less on critical theories. Many publications highlight the importance of community forestry worldwide while at the same time question ist successes. The book will contribute to the scientific discourse while analyzing forest policy in Cameroon through the example of community forestry. Power being the core of the analysis as a driving factor fo forest policy in Cameroon, the book questions such as: (1) How an power be described in the context of forest policy, case study of community forestry? (2) What are the power processes? And (3) what outcomes of this power processes could be observed? The book analyzes the importance of power through political and critical theories, connecting them with other power theories and concepts formulated by the Community Forestry Working Group in Goettingen, Germany.