Le rôle controversé de la fiscalité forestière dans la gestion des forêts tropicales. L'état du débat et les perspectives en Afrique centrale

Abstract

The controversial role of forest taxation regimes on tropical forests management practices. Issues and perspectives in Central Africa The effects of forest taxation regimes on logging and management practices in moist tropical forests have been assessed in opposite ways. In the meantime, donors are asking developing countries to reform their existing forest taxation regimes to improve the overall forest sector management. The debate stands on two different aspects : the level and the distribution of the forest economic rent on one hand, and the balance between the upstream and the downstream part of the wood commodity chain on the other hand. In Central Africa, the amplitude of the forest rent has fluctuated during the last 30 years. If the influence of high rent levels on management practices is uncertain, one can say however that its lamination due to the low level of timber prices on the international markets led to an expansion of bad management practices. The recovery since the mid-1990' s and the new regulation constraints have led a handful of forest operators to invest in management plan preparation. But the institutional instability and the endemic corruption in several countries within the sub-region are also key factors for the decision process toward the choice of management practices. What is at stake is may be less the absolute level of taxes and royalties than the choice of optimal taxes combinations, coupled with new regime of access to the forest resources. In that view, forest control, taxes, and other foreseeable economic instruments - as transferable log exports quotas - are acting as a system. As the main forest companies in Central Africa are vertically integrated, analysis should take into consideration the industrial wood processing and its associated innovation potential, which leads to a differentiation between the economic rent level amongst companies. On that basis, the taxation regime, backed by regulations enforcement, can contribute to stir up the selection process leading to increase the general level of efficiency within the forest sector.