Valentina Robiglio, Paolo Omar Cerutti, Guillaume Lescuyer.
Presentation for the conference on
Taking stock of smallholders and community forestry
Montpellier France
March 24-26, 2010
Feeding the domestic market: Is small-scale timber harvesting sustainable in Cameroon?
1. Feeding the domestic market: is small-scale timber harvesting sustainable in Cameroon? Taking Stock of Small holder and Community Forestry 24-26 March 2010, Montpellier, France. Valentina Robiglio, Paolo Omar Cerutti, Guillaume Lescuyer.
2. Rationale: The existence of a flourishing timber domestic sector (DS): sales reached about 600,000 m3(sawnwood); Most of the timber marketed in the DS is “illegally” sourced from the Non Permanent Forest Domain (NPFD); General conclusion is that the Non Permanent Forest Domain (NPFD) works as a buffer to supplytimber to the DS and reduce the pressure on the Permanent Domain Question: How far the timberharvested in the rural mosaicdoesrepresent a valuable option to control the pressure on forest resources in the Permanent Forest Domain and can guarantee provision to the DS Analysis: Identification of the speciestraded, the agricultural unitswithinwhichthey are integrated and more frequentlyharvested Characterization of management and harvesting practices in rural areas Assessment of the current volume of supply of timber from farm land
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4. The 70% of that timber comes from the rural mosaic;
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6. The humid forest zone: the agricultural mosaic Centre Region: agricultural land use units and timber supply Mosaïque agricole: Fields Young Fallow/Oldfallow Cocoa agroforest Small «domestic »forest (degradedforest )
7. Data: Urban market data about timber -species, products and origin- sold in the 24 markets of Yaoundé; Recording of 150 small-scale forestry operations (in 18 Councils) in 8 departments; Data on small-holders timber trees management and harvesting practices (in 6 Councils); Public data from FAO –FNMA and spatial data from GFW Atlas and ProPsfe+ data about agricultural production surfaces from the MINADER .
8. Results 1: market and supplying departments About 75% of total sales in the Market of Yaoundeis made of 5 species. The rest of sales includes about 30 species. Ayous 45%, Iroko 10%, Bilinga 8%, Movingui 7%, Sapelli 5%; About 50% of the sales comes from one single department (Mefou et Afamba).
9. Results 2: harvesting operations species/LU difference species /land unit (species that are marketed in urban markets)
13. In one village the sale is contracted individually, by offer to a sawyers crew operating in the zone or by demand.
14. Farmers sell the standing tree or they contract for the transformation and sell the sawn products. In this way they usually get a higher return and are paid cash. €
15. Results 3: on-farm timber harvesting & management 71.4% of the farmers protect naturally regenerated trees from fire and from competing weeds from the young fallow phase onward throughout several fallow-crop sequences. In the cocoa agro-forests tree species with a known positive effect on the micro-environmental conditions are allowed to grow. Their position in the farm counts in deciding about maintaining them or not. The 88% of the farmers perceive that natural regeneration is declining and the species that are logged are disappearing. Only a 17% of farmers indicate re-planting as a measure to maintain the timber stock, however only very few farmers do that. There is no strategy to maintain a stable stock of commercial timber on the land.
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17. Species typical of dense high forest are rare if not absent from farmland whereas other species included Ayous and Iroko but in particular Frake, Dabema, regenerate also in degraded land;
18. Among the most important harvested species, Ayous and Iroko present small individuals indicating the presence of natural regeneration and recruitment processes also in disturbed conditions;
22. CONCLUSIONS In customarily managed forest land a strong relationship exists between agricultural land use and small-holder timber exploitation; In the customarily managed forest land land use decision making is done at the household/individual level also for what concerns the timber exploitation; However timber exploitation is “opportunistic” both when clearing for field preparation and harvesting of single trees standing in the agricultural units; Timberharvested in the rural mosaicdoesnot represent a long term option to sustainably provide timber to the DS and control the pressure on forest resources in the Permanent Forest Domain.
23. THANK YOU ! Taking Stock of Small holder and Community Forestry 24-26 March 2010, Montpellier, France. Valentina Robiglio, Paolo Omar Cerutti, Guillaume Lescuyer.
Hinweis der Redaktion
Supplying of commercial timber to the domestic market in Cameroon
Cite general result from PAOLO ...., from GUILLAUME
where small-scale farmers practice fallow-based agriculture/shifting cultivation and agro-forestry;
Domestic market is turned towards the Non Permanent Forest Domain (NPFD) and is driven by urban population growth and the increasing investments in urban infrastructure development (e.g. for building material). Community forests (CF) and small titles and authorizations were originally designed to provide timber to that market. Parlandodel NPFD, aggiungeredatisu FC (total of operating are 71 if optimistically 200 m3 of sawnwood 14200 m3 = %)The contribution of timber sourced from Community Forest is unknown however considering that the area for which the management plans have been approved is of about 0.5M ha (data ProPSFE- consulted 27/11/09) and that within that only a small portion of land is logged every year, we expect that their capacity to satisfy the domestic demand is well below the volume required.According to our estimates the NPFD in the rainforest zone still hosts a high amount of dense high forest (about 7.65 M ha calculated on the TREES map, Mayaux et al. 1997). 6.6%.Permanent Forest Domain (NPFD) that according to the National Forest Zoning Plan provided by the 1994 Foret Code, is the forestland that can be allocated to other uses than forestry. When there are not other permits these forests are managed according to customary rules (see below).
Depending on subsistence requirements each household crops a minimum of two new foodcrop fields a year and maintains a set of cultivated plots and natural fallows under varioussecondary vegetation stages. Farmers clear fallows at different stages or forest dependingon crops’ requirements, generating a complex rotational system that combines short andlong fallows (Nounamo and Yemefack 2002). Fallow sequences do not replicate in a fixedmanner and on the same plot short and long fallow can alternate (Robiglio 2008).Farms in the forest zone are generally small (estimated mean annual cultivated surfaceranges from 2.6ha to 3.5ha according to Gockowski et al. 2004) and their land is fragmentedthroughout the village territory, as determined by the spatial configuration of local land tenure(Robiglio 2008). The total agricultural land (the land that is allocated to an agricultural landuse) is actually much more vast because it includes the land under fallow. Ranging from theearly stages of herbaceous coverage to degraded secondary forest, fallow land is the most extended land use in the agricultural land at the forest margin(Fig. 5).During fallow and forest clearing for field preparation farmers maintain indigenous tree species of cultural value or socio-economic importance, alongside large to very large individuals of other species that cannot not be easily removed (Fig.2). Customarily individual farmers have exclusive rights and access to timber resources standing in their own land. Planting nurturing and protecting provide to the individual the right to control the use of a tree. However traditional tree tenure system is not explicitly recognized by the forest code of 1994.
Market: Wider study (introduce briefly the methodology)Local operators: general results
The markets of Ydé (24 over 48 total counted in Bertoua, Douala and Ydé) sell about 87% of total sales for CameroonAbout 92% of the timber sold in Ydé has a declared origin in the Centre Province (5% South and 3% East)About 75% of total sales is made of 5 species. The rest of sales includes about 30 species
Domestic forest, family forest
87% des paysans ont coupé des essences commerciales dans leurs concessions Dans les cinq dernières années, environ 47% des paysans a vendu des arbres présents sur leur terrain. En moyenne 1.5 arbres a été coupé par ménage (min=1, max= 6).Logging operations are conducted with chainsaws on the felling site without transporting timber logs to processing units (Plate 4). Logging is operated by sawyers, coming from the village or from Yaounde. The sawnwood is clandestinely transported to urban or local market at the charge of the logger. In one village the sale is contracted individually, by offer to a sawyers crew operating in the zone or by demand. Farmers sell the standing tree or they contract for the transformation and sell the sawn products. In this way they usually get a higher return and are paid cash. The price farmers can get is variable. In general is very low compared to the price of the sawn product in the urban market. For instance farmers are paid about 100 Fcfa (0.15€) for a lath of Ayous that is sold in Younde at about 1800 Fcfa (2.7€). According to Lescuyer (op. cit.)buying the timber from the customary owner amounts only to the 7% of the total costs of a logging operation (~33.5 €/m3).
There are no specific data about on farm timber trees production in Cameroon. Such data are needed to assess the sustainability of present harvesting practices in the Domestic Market. According FAO-FNMA inventory (2007) the biggest volume of trees is in Cameroon is in the natural forest (6547.9M m3 ) but land outside forest maintains a considerable amount of timber namely about 246.2 M m3 and 244.2 M m3 respectively on agricultural (included agroforestry systems : cocoa and coffee) and fallow land. We used the FAO-FNMA data (courtesy of FAO Forest Department) to get data about the species that are most marketed in Cameroon. We merged the list of the 10 most important species in terms of exported volume for 2006 (Figure 2) with the 10 best sold species in the domestic market for 2008-2009 (courtesy of Cerutti, 2009). For each species we calculated volume and stem density (Figure 7 and 8). The calculation was based on the samples covering areas in the forest zone that were not classified as forest (= Young secondary forest and agricultural areas), for a total of 80 samples (above 236). The total area of the sub-sample was 160 ha and included 85.42 ha of non forest land.
where small-scale farmers practice fallow-based agriculture/shifting cultivation and agro-forestry;
The departments have % of forest, mosaic , and a similar accessibility to Yaounde’;The department differ for the amount of crops , crops , crops…..;The department differ for the amount of land under permanent….For the amount of land under community forests
where small-scale farmers practice fallow-based agriculture/shifting cultivation and agro-forestry;
where small-scale farmers practice fallow-based agriculture/shifting cultivation and agro-forestry;
Supplying of commercial timber to the domestic market in Cameroon