Stakeholder Roles and Relations in Forest Management around the Boumba-Bek National Park, South East Cameroon

Abstract

This study, which took place around the Boumba-Bek National Park (BBNP) in Cameroon, was based on identifying and characterizing stakeholders in forest resources management, as well as determining the relationships between them, with the goal of encouraging collaborative forest resources management. Purposive sampling was adopted, in which focus group discussions, key in-formant interviews, semi-structured interviews, and snowball sampling were used for data collection. Focus group discussions were conducted with a total of 20 local associations involved in forest and wildlife management, Bantu tra-ditional councils and the Baka community. Key informant interviews were conducted with local and international NGOs, forest exploitation and Sport hunting (Safari) enterprises and local public administrations that had working rapports with village communities around the BBNP. Information was gener-ally sought on the role of stakeholders in forest management, in terms of use, protection, policy enforcement, challenges encountered in their activities and their relationships with other stakeholders. Actor linkage matrix was used to establish the relationships between different stakeholders. The identified stakeholder groups included the local community, State, international and local NGOs, economic operators (forest exploitation and sport hunting enterprises), and also the rules guiding their activities. Conflicts were rife between the community and the other stakeholders with regard to resource accessibility and use, whereas intra-community conflicts mostly resulted from cases of corruption and embezzlement linked to benefits sharing. Cases of collabora-tion among all the stakeholders were mostly related to anti-poaching patrols and setting of forest concession limits. There is a need to bring all stakeholders on the same platform, such as in a consultation workshop, to get their percep-tions on building trust, conflict resolution and genuine collaboration in re-sources management.