Abstract
SUMMARY In Cameroon, sustainable timber management relies on the model of large logging concession. However, over the past fifteen years, small-scale logging has become a common activity, with two different forms. First, the creation of community forests in the late 1990s allowed village associations to legally harvest, process and trade timber, almost always with the support of external actors such as NGOs or private operators. Second, individual chainsaw milling, almost always informal, has grown considerably. The article compares the economic, social and environmental impacts of these two options of small-scale logging. Although much focus has been put on community forestry over the latest two decades, it remains a marginal activity with a turnover of less than € 2 million per year and a small impact on rural economies. Conversely, informal chainsaw milling represents an annual turnover of € 93 million, with a flow of revenues around € 30 million for the benefit of rural population. From an environment...
Highlights
The evolution of the paradigm of sustainable development in the 1980s and 1990s, and the debate on forests that was re-launched at the 1992 Earth Summit resulted in significant changes in the views on how tropical forests were to be managed
In the realm of strong sustainability, the natural capital is to a great extent non-substitutable (Dietz and Neumayer 2007), and Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) becomes the use of natural forest which indefinitely maintains the forest substantially unimpaired in the environmental services it provides, as well as in its biological quality (Goodland et al 1991, Poore et al 1989)
There, SFM is broadly defined as a system of forest management that aims for sustained yields of multiple products from the forest in order to achieve environmental, economic and social objectives (Panayotou and Ashton 1992, Pearce et al 1999)
Summary
The evolution of the paradigm of sustainable development in the 1980s and 1990s, and the debate on forests that was re-launched at the 1992 Earth Summit resulted in significant changes in the views on how tropical forests were to be managed. The principle of Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) was the most immediate translation of these changes (Smouts 2001), and it was based on economic, ecological and social foundations. A more economical and technical vision is proposed for SFM, defined as the production of continuous flow of desired forest products and services without undue reduction of its inherent values and future productivity and without undue undesirable effects on the physical and social environment (D’Silva and Appanah 1993, Luckert and Williamson 2005, Toman and Ashton 1996). There, SFM is broadly defined as a system of forest management that aims for sustained yields of multiple products from the forest in order to achieve environmental, economic and social objectives (Panayotou and Ashton 1992, Pearce et al 1999). Much was left to each institution or country to decide where SFM should be applied, and to translate “sustained yields” into technical regulations that logging companies, private individuals or communities could apply on the ground
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