Traditional wildlife hunting has been described mainly from studies of local practices and from the monitoring of urban bushmeat markets. However, the overall value chain connecting hunters to end consumers remains largely unknown, thus preventing any estimate of the actual socio-economic importance of the bushmeat sector. On the basis of existing literature, this paper provides an order of magnitude for the financial and economic benefits of the bushmeat commodity chain in Cameroon. The following conservative conclusions were arrived at: (1) The annual turnover of the bushmeat sector in the country is likely to be close to €97 million, i.e. 36% more than the official assessment derived from public accounts. (2) The bushmeat sector may contribute 0.17% to Cameroon's GDP (non-oil), as much as the mining sector. (3) Self-consumption of bushmeat in rural areas may amount to gross annual economic benefit of more than €142 million. However, bushmeat in a country like Cameroon needs to be managed so as to guarantee the food security of urban and rural populations, as well as maintain a substantial source of revenue for communities, all of this without depleting the resource. Achieving this goal requires policy makers to disassociate wildlife harvesting from 'poaching' and the extirpation of species. It is crucial to go beyond the dominant narrative of a (real but over simplified) notion of a conservation crisis, to address its important livelihood and welfare dimensions. (Résumé d'auteur
Since the second half of the 2000s, several options for implementing community-based forest management in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), like the local community forest concession (LCFC), have been discussed in the country's technical and political circles. Proposals and pilot testing have increased in the last five years, but the funding of initiatives is often proposed for divergent purposes and taking different approaches. We reviewed current experiences in the Eastern province of the DRC and found that nobody has carried out an estimation of the financial returns of the business models they drew up for/with the communities involved. We therefore conducted a financial feasibility analysis for two case studies, estimating the costs of developing/ implementing activities and the benefits expected for the communities within the next five years. Three main conclusions were drawn from the analysis: (1) most activities conducted under the LCFC model deal with rural development, and not with forestry operations per se; (2) several forestry activities such as biodiversity conservation or carbon sequestration are not detailed in the management documents and appear to have little legitimacy for local populations; (3) the two LCFCs show a negative financial performance because the inception and implementation costs are substantially higher than the medium-term profits. Community forestry is unlikely to develop in the DRC unless local people are guaranteed that it will contribute to improving their livelihoods, notably their financial and physical capital. This requires that LCFC initiatives focus on actual productive uses of forest resources, which financial performance is systematically assessed ex ante. A simplification of the legal constraints is also needed to reduce the cost of creating and managing a LCFC.
Illegal logging is perceived to pose significant obstacles to the achievement of sustainable management of forests in the tropics. Equally importantly, it gives rise to or supports other undesirable outcomes -networks of corruption, generating significant volumes of "black" money and fuelling speculation, crime, or trafficking. However, illegal logging of tropical timber is not homogeneous and its characteristics depend, among others, on the supplying markets, at the national or the international scales. Available approaches to reduce illegal logging, at different levels of governance, in the producing and consuming countries are reviewed and their potential contribution is assessed.
Despite the importance of “green consumption”, it has received little attention in sub-Saharan Africa. To address this gap, a systematic review of the scientific literature was conducted on the patterns of green consumption in this region using three parameters: green consumption, behaviour, and location. Forty-eight articles and publications were identified between 2010 and 2021 on Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar and grey literature. Scientific literature on green consumption in sub-Saharan Africa has expanded over the last five years, but it focuses primarily on emerging countries (Republic of South Africa and Nigeria) and the upper social classes. Most articles used the theory of planned behaviour as a theoretical framework. Green consumption of food and agricultural products are the most studied, with 14 articles. Energy, cosmetics, tourism, and textiles are each the subject of three specific publications. The emergence of middle-class consumers in sub-Saharan Africa is likely to contribute to the expansion of green consumption for a broad spectrum of goods and services.
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