News

Implementation annual work plan for year I

The objectives of the SUFACHAC are to be achieved through three interrelated landscape level actions centred on;

(1) Conservation of critical wildlife habitats through the creation and strengthening of Protected Areas of high conservation value

(2) Sustainable agricultural practices and promotion of livelihoods of communities and conservation of biodiversity through an Integrated Environmental and Social Management Plan

(3) Knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation.

 Some key activities planned for year one (2017-2018) as per the 03 components of the project were implemented with the support of implementing partners and local consultants. It focused on;

• Reviewing past and ongoing TOU experiences in Cameroon to guide the establishment of the BBML TOU,\ (Component I)
• Identification of key beneficiaries and their needs to support the effective management of the BBML (component I)
• Development of a communication plan to guide the visibility of the project(Component 3)
• Review of the PSMNR approach to collaborative management and conservation incentives (CMCI) to support the development of guidelines that will clearly link management plans of protected areas and landscapes to the expressed needs of affected communities and other stakeholders (Component 2).

With regards to the establishment and effectively managed Bakossi Banyang Mbo Lebialem (BBML) Technical Operation Unit (TOU), a lot of information has been gathered beginning with the studies to review the past and ongoing experiences in Cameroon and consultation with stakeholders to identify appropriate institutional structure for the BBML TOU. Where study results from the situational analysis reveals the presence of diverse stakeholders having interest in the management of the proposed TOU and classified under primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

Secondly, the launching of the process to the creation of the BBML ToU was undertaken by PSMNR with the drafting of a technical note since 2014 and submitting it to MINFOF.  However, analysis of the draft technical note shows some inconsistencies as mentioned below;

• According to this draft technical note, the TOU covers three  divisions,  namely  the Manyu,  Kupe-Manenguba  and  Lebialem  Divisions,  with  a  surface  area  of  513,000 hectares. Protected areas within the proposed TOU include: Banyang-Mbo Wildlife Sanctuary, Bakossi  National  Park,  Mungo River Reserve, Mounts  Kupe  and  Manenguba  Integral Ecological  Reserves,  the  proposed  Mak-Betchu  Wildlife  Sanctuary  and  Tofala  Hills wildlife sanctuary. After analysis of topographic and administrative maps of the area and consultation with stakeholders,
• Analysis of interactions (partnerships/collaborations and conflicts) among them shows cases of sporadic and informal collaboration, conflictual relationship and formal collaboration/partnership.
• The draft technical note proposed a rotating mandate for the Conservator of the TOU, which is hardly applicable because in a creation decree, the Conservator has to be clearly and formally designated. The revised governance structure proposes the Divisional Delegate of Kupé Manenguba as Coordinator/Conservator of the TOU (This Division covers approximatively 76% of the TOU surface area). The Conservators of the other PAs are rather members of the TOU Management Committee, which is chaired by the Regional Delegate of Forestry for South-West Region, which covers nearly 90% of the surface area of ​​the TOU.
• The previous draft technical note was not accompanied by a draft decree for the creation and made no mention of the procedural approach of the preparation of the drafting process.

After analysis of topographic and administrative maps of the area and consultation with stakeholders it appears.

1. That the protected areas Mount Manenguba and Mount Kupé overlaps the territories of the Moungo Division in the Littoral Region.
2. That within those previous TOU boundaries, no PA exists in the Manyu Division. This is why the boundaries of the TOU landscape have been revised to consider only the Kupe Manengoumba, Lebialem and Moungo Divisions.

Based on the above, a roadmap for the advancement of the process of creating this TOU has been proposed:

• Organizing a stakeholder workshop bringing together actors with interests in the creation of the TOU to agree upon the boundaries of the TOU, validate the draft decree for the creation of the TOU
• Organize sensitization/discussion meetings with key technical and financial partners to attract their investment in the project
• Organize lobbying mission at the Ministry of forest and wildlife to explain issues related to the TOU to the Minister, submit the updated technical note and draft decree, with support of Director of Wildlife and protected areas,

Equally a List of key Beneficiaries for the effective management of PAs within the BBML have been identified and classified at three levels:

1. People involved in activities to produce outputs (they include PAs, TOU Service, GIS Unit at RDFOF-SW, sectorial ministries that are statutory members of TOU technical and management committees, conservation and development NGOs/CSOs, CIGs, traditional rulers, and VFMCs)
2. Those benefiting from development outcome – (cash crop and subsistence farmers, NTFP collectors, hunters, councils, and schools)
3. Those who will benefit from potential impact – (PAs and farmers).

Stakeholders activities related to forest management currently going on in and out of the PAs within the BBML have been identified as well as their priority need areas (capacity building, supplementary funds, equipment and infrastructure, information needs and human resource)

Review of the PSMNR approach to collaborative management and conservation incentives identified certain strengths on which SUFACHAC could build on such as the interactions with higher level stakeholders; information exchange and some capacity building; opportunities for relationships with different community social groups, and some direct benefits from conservation measures.

Opportunities for best practices were also recommended that SUFACHAC can explore to improve on the process as can be seen from the points below;

• Formalization of the process to creates excellent basis for broadening the stakeholder base to reflect a landscape approach.
• To soften the collaborative relationship between the core conservation zones (Park Services) and different communities and stakeholder SUFACHAC need to incorporate gender differentiation through approaches which will reflect the diversity of a multifunctional landscapes.
• Stakeholders concede that combining formal structures into a more flexible and adaptive negotiation processes will dampen the one size fits all perception of agreements and facilitate comparisons between sites as well as enhancing specificities within sites.
• Opportunities also exist at landscape level to build incentive systems into broader community development initiatives and diminish the potential for community resentments against paid Facilitators.
• Opportunities also exist at landscape scale to tap into community traditions, knowledge systems about natural resources; even cultural practices to conceive of more diversified and innovative incentives schemes leading to more appropriate valuing and perception of biological resources.
• Stakeholders argue that within a landscape context, Adaptive Co-Management - ACM (instead of Co-Management) may be more appropriate in assisting communities to effectively “do their own thing, in their own ways” as long as common assessments do not prove such local initiatives to be deleterious to natural resources management.
• Stakeholders further argue for additional experts to be explicitly brought into the CDA negotiations process to not only reflect the fullest range of ecosystem services occurring within a landscape, but to enrich the process, especially during negotiations involving technical issues beyond the reach of local communities.
• Stakeholders argue that whereas for statutory reasons, zoning has produced positive results, in terms of management, with the exception of core areas, there is a need to shift from a “territorial” to a “landscape” approach; of managing ecosystem services and monitoring outcomes rather than focusing on individual actions of command and control.

However certain weaknesses were perceived with the CMCI approach that SUFACHAC need to guard against for effective implementation of the landscape approach. Some of them are;

• Inactive consultative committees;
• high expectation from communities;
• direct cash payments appears disruptive of community cohesion and mildly coercive in soliciting pro quo actions;
• weak long term sustainability of incentive scheme;
• decision making appears heavily in favour of the park services;
• involvement of women is more evident in conservation measures and less directly in decision making;
• perceived insensitivities to different statuses of protected areas;
• Conservation Development Agreements negotiations appear too lengthy for community initiatives,
• communities perceive their creativity and voices to be stifled in decision-making;
• high risk of inaccurate messaging about the value of biodiversity arising from modes of payments;
• There is a sense that much of the community are left out of the incentive process.

A review of previous studies has also been done to provide floral, faunal and socio- economic information that will support the follow up of the creation of the BBML TOU. This was done for each of the 03 protected areas and for the 03 proposed protected areas including the 04 community forests and the 01 FMU existing within the project area. Results from this review reveals that there about 2440 plants found within the landscape, 100 amphibian species and 08 IUCN most important mammals, 64 species of birds.

As part of the process in supporting the capacity building training for local community structures in the protection and conservation of BBML Protected Areas and the classification process of new protected areas, village forest management committees were created in 08 villages within the proposed mount Muanenguba Integral ecological Reserve and a participatory demarcation of its boundaries has also been successfully done with a proposed map of the reserve produced. Much work has also been done to train the Village forest management committees (VFMC) that were created in 2015 for the management of the Tofala hill wildlife sanctuary. There were 08 VFMCs that were created in 08 villages but merged as one FMC known as the Tofala Hill wildlife sanctuary management council (THWMC). This training focused on the management of forestry and wildlife resources.

Work Team

Key to the planning and implementation of SUFACHAC conservation and development activities includes the PMU team, the staff of ERUDEF & CHEDE as implementing partners, other national partners. The conservators of protected areas and local communities.