**2. Historical evolution of council forests in Cameroon**

**1. Introduction**

Cameroon's Technical Centre for Communal Forestry (CTFC, 2010) defines a council forest as a forest that constitutes part of Cameroon's permanent forest, which is governed by an agreement between the municipality and the Ministry of Forests and Fauna (MINFOF). Cheteu [1] notes that Cameroon's council forests are usually endowed with a management plan

The rate of deforestation in Cameroon forests including council forest remains one of the highest in the Congo Basin. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), between 2000 and 2010, the annual rate of deforestation of Cameroon's tropical rainforest of the Congo Basin was approximately 1.04%. Furthermore, it is reported that about 75% of the forest in Cameroon (including council forest) has been degraded as a result of forest exploitation. As a result, development and conservation experts as well as indigenous rights advocates have embraced the management of council forest to address deforestation and forest degradation as well as improve the livelihoods of communities that depend on these forests. Management of these forests allows local populations to benefit from forests and its resources, as opposed to outside entrepreneurs or economic and political elites. By acquiring rights over natural resources, and related increase in organizational strength, the residents of the municipality as well as the local population can also improve participation in democratic processes. Communal control over these forests therefore decreases the opportunities of nonlocals to engage in destructive forest use, resulting in a positive conservation impact [2]. For instance, within the Guinean forest block, Liberia's council forests are significant for their rich biodiversity as they contain approximately 225 timber species, 2900 flowering plant species, 140 mammal species, 600 bird species, 75 reptile and amphibian species, and over 1000 species of insect [3]. While in Guatemala, the highland council forest landscapes are strategically important because of their location in the higher watershed areas that contribute to the maintenance of water sources; an aspect that is acquiring greater interest and

A majority of studies carried out to date on council forests in Cameroon have sought to describe the state of these forests and the participation of forest-dependent communities in their management [5–9]. At the same time, however, fundamental questions, such as: what are the opportunities associated with council forests in Cameroon especially in terms of their potentials for climate change mitigation and socioeconomic development of rural communities; what threats to these forests faced, and what are the possible options or scenarios that could be used to promote their sustainability, have been seriously overlooked. The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to examine this much-neglected area of the debate using findings obtained from field work in Cameroon and a comprehensive review of relevant literature. Hopefully, policy makers at the national and subnational level in Cameroon will be able to incorporate the findings of this investigation into their strategic plans designed to

executed by the council or municipality under the supervision of MINFOF.

80 Tropical Forests - The Challenges of Maintaining Ecosystem Services while Managing the Landscape

relevance in light of declining water supplies in the area [4].

advance sustainable management of these forests.

Following independence in 1960 from France and 1961 from Britain, in order to protect and manage Cameroon's natural resources, a series of laws and decrees were enacted. Prominent among them were the 11th July 1968 Law which brought the notion of forest conservation and its resources, Order No. 73118 of 22nd May 1973 creating protected areas and recognizing the use rights of the local population, and Law No. 83/13 of 27th November 1983 fixing the forest, fauna, and fishery system. These regulations instituted a policy which insisted on the necessity of using forest resources in a rational manner, with the aim of maximizing productivity so as to offer the necessary revenue needed to perpetuate the wellbeing of the local population [10].

While all these regulations brought hope to nationals, they were not sufficient to guarantee the populations' participation in the management of forest resources; especially the conservation of the existing forests. The wind of sustainable development dictated by the international community around the 1990s doubled the determination of the Cameroonian government to effectively fight against poverty while maintaining its forest resources, led to the creation of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MINEF) in 1992.

In 1994, a new forestry law was voted by the national assembly promulgated by the President of the Republic of Cameroon. Central to this law, was the sustainable management of forest resources with a strong implication of the local population. The latter, which constituted one of the most important innovations of this law, was marked by the creation and regulation of decentralized forest management models including *inter alia* council forests [5].

With the adoption of the decentralization laws of 2004 and the ongoing process to strengthen the role of the council in the development of their area and the management of natural resources, the option of council forest continuously evolved while attracting more attention from the councils [8]. Since 2004, council forest landscapes in Cameroon have increased rapidly from 13 council forests in 2004 (collectively covering 325,500 ha); 18 council forests in 2006 (collectively covering 413,622 ha); 31 council forests in 2009 (collectively covering 734,751 ha); to a total of 34 areas designated as council forests (collectively covering 827,285 ha) as of June 2011.

Cameroon's council forests provide environmental services such as raw materials (mostly timber) that provide significant revenue for economic development in Cameroon. Additionally, this forest is rich in nontimber forest products (NTFPs) that are harvested by forestdependent communities for commercialization and for subsistence purposes. It is also important to note that Cameroon's council forest also contains an enormous amount of carbon. The ecosystem of these forests can also provide other fundamental environmental services including watershed management, soil quality improvement, biofuels from forest residues, and biodiversity.

The establishment of council forest has also altered the land use changes in the regions where they have been set up as many municipalities have contracted their forest to large-scale logging companies for forest exploitations. These companies are engaged in large scale and intensive logging operations and can devastate a council forest in a little time interval.
