Viability of community forests as social enterprises: A Cameroon case study

Abstract

Since the concept of community forests was instituted in Cameroon in 1994, there has been an upsurge of such forest management arrangements in the country. However, up to now there is no conclusive evidence as to whether such schemes can operate as profitable ventures and at the same time meet their social and environmental objectives. The latter is the core objective of a social enterprise that constitutes the basis of our analysis. In fact, little attention has been paid to understanding the business side of community forests. In this regard, we review existing evidence about community forests making profits and simultaneously meeting their social and sustainable forest management goals. The analysis is based on a range of literature covering 20 years of community forestry experience in Cameroon and also from information gathered from nine case study community forests in Cameroon. Although not overwhelming, the existing literature shows that community forests can be run as profitable enterprises. However, profitability is conditional on the type of activities the enterprises engaged in, the capacity of the community forest entrepreneurs to run the business themselves rather than subcontracting, and on the capacity of the enterprises, especially timber related ones, to diversify into nontimber forest products (NTFPs) and agricultural activities. The available evidence suggests mixed results about the contribution of community forests to community development projects and livelihoods, and emphasizes that the legal form of the community forest, the kind of enterprise the community focuses on and the type of support received by the community forest are important drivers of viable community forest enterprises. The study further notes the absence of a sustainable funding model for community forest enterprises and recommends that government should officially classify them in the social enterprise sector. By so doing, community forests can benefit from special programs meant for the social enterprise sector including the provision of starting capital and capacity building on basic business principles.

Analysis of land cover change due to deforestation at Holiday Resort Nature Park, North Sumatra Province, Indonesia

“…Deforestation is a farming activity or taking forest products from illegal forest areas that result in forest damage and is carried out by any person or business entity [28]- [29]. It means all forms of community activities without government permission in forest areas are considered nature reserves, conservation forests, production forests, or protected forests will be treated as a violation of government regulations [30].…”

Towards a typology of forest-managing organisations around the globe

“…Forest-managing social enterprises are social economy organisations with for-profit goals. These FMOs can emerge from the cooperation of small- or medium-scale forest owners (Hull and Ashton 2008), the market orientation of forest producer organisations (Tirivayi et al 2018), or tree grower associations (Hintz et al 2021), or the development of community-owned forest enterprises (Antinori and Bray 2005, Foundjem-Tita et al 2018). These associations seek to improve the profitability of their forest operations by scaling-up production, employing professional foresters for technical assistance, sharing machinery, securing financial support, and improving market access and stability (Humphries et al 2012).…”

Viability of artisanal timber milling: cases from Ghana

“…Following Starik andKanashiro (2013) andFoundjem-Tita et al (2018), the framework for assessing the performance of forest enterprises can well be used to assess the viability of Artisanal Timber Milling (ATM). Indicators used here are adapted from international experiences with assessing forest enterprises (Bagnoli and Megali, 2011;Boyer et al, 2008;Bell and Morse, 2008) and enabling conditions for profitable and sustainable ATMs (Macqueen, 2010).…”