Programme description

Title: Sustainable management of natural resources
Commissioned by: Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)
Country: Cameroon
Lead executing agency: Ministère des Forêts et de la Faune (MINFOF)
Overall term: October 2003 to September 2015

Context

Although the immense natural resource wealth of Cameroon has the potential to further economic development and poverty eradication, this potential has essentially remained untapped. Natural resources are generally not sustainably exploited and continue to be destroyed.

Various national programmes and strategies targeting the sustainable use of natural resources have failed to date owing to a range of conflicting interests. What is more, they lack harmonisation and coordination.

Now, the country’s government is aiming to make some decisive headway towards achieving the sector-specific objectives it has set itself by implementing a National Forest Programme, the Programme Sectoriel Forêts et environnement (PSFE).

Objective

The political, legal, institutional and economic-policy framework conditions that communities and private companies need to be able to sustainably manage forest resources and protect biodiversity are generated.

Conflicts between local and national development interests and the protection objectives laid down in international environmental conventions are dealt with on a model basis within the scope of the programme, resulting in appropriate solutions.

People who live in protected forest areas harness the forest’s potential in a sustainable manner for their own development.

A results-oriented monitoring instrument provides reliable steering data which is used to design sector policy and update the PSFE.

Approach

The priority of the GTZ programme is on coordinating and harmonising all national and international actors involved in the PSFE along with their respective activities. Furthermore, through close cooperation with the Comission des Forêts d’Afrique Central (COMIFAC), the PSFE is to be aligned with supranational approaches within the region.

Within this context, GTZ is now spearheading implementation of the European thematic strategy “Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade” in Cameroon. This includes, for example, a national monitoring strategy to combat the illegal timber trade.

Other key areas of activity include the communication of knowledge and methods to promote natural resource management and the requisite alignment of legislation and administrative regulations, as well as public awareness-raising and information, along with the development of a monitoring system as a yardstick for measuring PSFE success. Consultancy is being provided to the Ministry of Forests and Wildlife – Ministère des Forêts et de la Faune – with a view to updating the national programme.

In the southwest and southeastern region of Cameroon, GTZ is working with state authorities, WWF and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to build up UTOs (technical operation units known in French as “Unité Technique Opérationnelle“). UTOs are a spatial planning instrument designed to harmonise the economic and ecological interests in a given region.
 
Also, in close participation with the local population, plans are now being drawn up for protected areas, including management plans and financing plans for investment.

Results achieved so far

Thanks to German support, a consistent, national sector strategy with clearly defined priorities and medium-term expenditure plans is now on hand.

Considerable advances have been made in spatial planning for individual regions based on geographic, ecological and socio-economic criteria (landscape approach) thanks to a participatory process involving the forest authorities and other partners. Management plans are also on hand for two key protected areas.

Various examples of direct support for the local population exist, such as support for a national non-governmental organisation that has been helped to expand its range of eco-tourism services in its area and thus to more than double the number of tourists in a three-year period (cf. Mount Cameroon Ecotourism Organisation under further information).
Village self-help groups in the southwest region are now managing the raw material obtained from the tree species “Prunus africana” – a product that is in great demand by the pharmaceutical industry – in line with management plans and in keeping with accepted sustainability criteria.
Guidelines for elaborating village development plans were drawn up with German support. These plans are designed to help the local communities make more effective use of their own finances and of external funding obtained from national and international sources.

Further information

• Local Website of the programme
  www.cameroun-foret.com
• Mount Cameroon Ecotourism Organisation
  www.mountcameroon.org