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Cuatomary tenure, mingled with state law and occasional private titling, continue predominantly to govern African rural and forest lands. This is in spite of evolutionist theories that predicted its demise and colonial and post-colonial policies that tried actively to accelerate it. The chapter develops an anthropological conceptualization of the institutions of embedded tenure. With examples from Africa and various part of the world, the authors highlight the factors that account for the flexibility, adaptibility and resilience of this type of system. Embedded tenure has been able to cope with economic stress and hostile policies because of the unique way in which it nests private entitlements into the commons, and both of them into collective property and long-lasting social institutions. Two philosophical principles giving rise to three constitutional rights and four appropriations regimes make up its structure, while dynamic access and transformation rules govern the interlocking and transmutations of appropriation regimes across space and time. This opens three specific paths of agricultural change as well profuse right delegation and land transaction procedures. These have helped the system adapt to changing economic, demographic and social conditions since at least the 19th century. Reductionist economic analyses of non-market systems, includingn property rights, kinship, common property and non-wage systems contributed to relegating the most innovative aspects of these systems in the limbo of imperfect markets. More interested in "crafted" institutions, the CPR literature also failed to see or emphasize the theoritical and policy implications of the nesting of appropriation regimes in embedded tenure. Other analyses have tended to overemphasize the controversial role of traditional authority at the expense of a deeper institutional analysis of the embedded system. The chapter highlights the numerous policy mistakes that can derive from these forms of reductions. The authors conclude that to disentangle African forest policies from the social costs and inefficiencies of the past, it is necessary to integrate the complexity and validity of embedded tenure institutions and their demonstrated ability to adapt to legal pluralism and commodity markets.

The humid forest zone of Cameroon is part of the biodiversity rich Congo Basin. Until the mid-1990s, the forests of Cameroon were centrally managed, which excluded communities from accessing forest resources and gaining economic benefits from them. In the early 1990s, more participative forest management practices emerged. The new forestry legislation of 1994 – focusing on the devolution of management responsibilities to local communities – has reinforced this participatory trend. In 2003, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and its partners started the Model Forest Project in Cameroon. This project is part of the International Model Forest Network (IMFN). The goal of the IMFN is the sustainable management of forests around the world, while taking into account the needs of local communities. This paper describes the process that led the Cameroonian Government to the recognition, in 2005, of Campo-Ma'an and Dja et Mpomo as Model Forest sites. It gives a description of the sites, the partnerships involved, stakeholders' perspectives, the accomplishments to date and future perspectives. It concludes that, while the project provides a framework for reflection, innovation and collective learning, it is as yet too early to demonstrate concrete progress or results.

A range of countries have sought more equitable governance of their natural resources, by devolving decision-making and resource control to local populations. In 1994, Cameroon adopted a new law granting local communities the possibility of greater control over forests, principally in response to donor conditionality on Structural Adjustment Loans (SALs). However, the enactment of the law lacked signifi cant domestic support. Confl icting interests and Cameroon's highly centralized administrative machinery have prevented effective devolution of forest management. In 2003, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and a consortium of institutional stakeholders started the Model Forest Project in Cameroon. This project is part of the International Model Forest Network (IMFN). The goal of the IMFN is to assist in the development of sustainable management of forests around the world, while taking into account the needs of local communities. In 2005, the government of Cameroon recognized Campo Ma'an and Dja et Mpomo as model forest sites. The partnership involved, policy dimensions, government commitment, accomplishment to date and its contributions to national and sub regional forestry programmes are discussed.

This study assesses the social, economical, ecological, political, legal, and institutional implications of options related to 'resettlement', 'boundary change', and 'enclave' delineation for each of the five park villages.The study finds that attempting to resettle all the villages from the Korup National Park (KNP) may not be realistic or achievable. At the same time, the present status quo proves not being tenable. Bareka-Batanga is the village the most clearly prepared to resettle, and the least costly too. If the Bakoko group of villages cannot be resettled, it will need a comprehensive development conservation plan within a 'sustainable livelihood option' here named 'enclave option. Three options exist for Erat and its twin village Ekon I: resettlement, with the financial cost scenarios particularly high; maintaining them where they are presently, that implies the much lower short-term financial cost; changing of the park's boundary.The economic analysis finds that under the original assumptions of the Korup project, resettling the villages remains a preferred option for long-term economic benefits. But slight changes into these assumptions significantly reduce forecasted benefits. By contrast, in the short term, the financial costs of resettlement are much higher than other options. The ecological assessment finds that people in the KNP are traditional forest-farmers, with almost 1/12th of the park already domesticated. At the same time, these communities depend vitally on the whole range of environmental services provided by the primary forest. In contrast, the study does not find evidence that hunting, fishing, or gathering by park villagers constitutes, as such, a threat to the sustainability of the wildlife or the ecosystems. The sociological analysis finds that communities' perceptions of the KNP are dominated by the sentiment that they have been deceived and abandoned. Parts of these communities would still like to be resettled, other want to stop all talks of resettlement and just 'divide' up the forest between them and the Korup project. Legal alternatives to the resettlement such as degazettment of part of the KNP to allow for certain villages to stay where they are while exercising freely their activities; the adaptation of the management plan, with the justification that such enclaves fall within the fundamental objectives of the management of the park; and a special regulatory amendment, by Decree of the Prime Minister or by ordinance of the President of the Republic with regulatory power.

También disponible en español con el título: Madera legal: verificación y gobernanza en el sector forestal. Publicado por CATIE ; This book investigates a topical issue in international forest policy development: how to verify the legality of timber sold on regional and international markets in ways that will satisfy both the interests of producer states and the demands of consumers. This seemingly straightforward and technical matter is in fact complex and political. It addresses a critical interface in inter-governmental relations, where producer states' rights of ownership are defended with considerable tenacity. While at one level the subject matter of this book is forest sector-specific, it touches on much broader issues about the balance between sovereign state control and the international stewardship of global public goods, illegality as a dimension of poor governance, and mechanisms of national and international public accountability. ed in this book, is a response to an important level of doubt over the functioning of the normal system of forest control, and involves two key aspects of 'additionality' to address this doubt: first, developing and implementing a set of additional measures to test and validate claims about legal compliance in the forest sector, and second, bringing in an additional set of actors from outside the forest sector, to help strengthen the credibility of these new measures and the accountability of those charged with implementing them. The overall conclusion that gradually emerges is that, to be effective in the situations that are typical of tropical producer states, the control of illegal logging cannot be addressed solely as a problem of criminality nor engineered entirely by external parties. It has, rather, to be positioned within a wider and well-embedded process of governance reform.

También disponible en español con el título: Madera legal: verificación y gobernanza en el sector forestal. Publicado por CATIE ; This book investigates a topical issue in international forest policy development: how to verify the legality of timber sold on regional and international markets in ways that will satisfy both the interests of producer states and the demands of consumers. This seemingly straightforward and technical matter is in fact complex and political. It addresses a critical interface in inter-governmental relations, where producer states' rights of ownership are defended with considerable tenacity. While at one level the subject matter of this book is forest sector-specific, it touches on much broader issues about the balance between sovereign state control and the international stewardship of global public goods, illegality as a dimension of poor governance, and mechanisms of national and international public accountability. ed in this book, is a response to an important level of doubt over the functioning of the normal system of forest control, and involves two key aspects of 'additionality' to address this doubt: first, developing and implementing a set of additional measures to test and validate claims about legal compliance in the forest sector, and second, bringing in an additional set of actors from outside the forest sector, to help strengthen the credibility of these new measures and the accountability of those charged with implementing them. The overall conclusion that gradually emerges is that, to be effective in the situations that are typical of tropical producer states, the control of illegal logging cannot be addressed solely as a problem of criminality nor engineered entirely by external parties. It has, rather, to be positioned within a wider and well-embedded process of governance reform.