Operationalizing the variables

From the extant literature on municipal forest management in the world, as well as forest policy documents in Cameroon, two main goals of council forestry can be elicited (MINFOF and GTZ 2008). The first objective of council forestry is to help the conservation of forest resources, what is called in the first article of the 1994 Forest Law sustainable forest management (SFM) (see Assembé-Mvondo 2009, 91). The second objective is to derive resources to improve local livelihoods and help alleviate rural poverty, or in the Cameroonian case as it is referred to local development.

Thus, the two goals of forest management decentralization examined in this study are SFM and local development and those are the two goals that shall be used to ascertain the success of the forest management decentralization experiment in Dimako Council. That is the dependent variable success is defined as the achievement of the two official goals of the program. Finally, for its part the independent variable shall ‘measure’ the mayor’s financial and political motives. A brief explanation of the indicators of the dependent and independent variables is provided below (for a more complete breakdown of the variables see Appendix B).

3.1.2.1 Sustainable forest management and the forest management plan

Although no agreement exists as to the meaning of SFM, and even the confusion over such terms as SFM and sustainable management of forests, the operational definition of SFM used here views the concept along the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) definition (see Chapter 1.0). Further, SFM in opposition to logging “typically combines harvesting guidelines designed to increase the growth of marketable timber with efforts aimed at lowering the damage to commercial trees” (Rice et al. 2001, 6). Put another way, SFM seeks to prohibit logging which “involves the swift cutting of a limited number of highly valued species with little attention given to the condition of the residual stand and no investment in regeneration” (Rice et al. 2001, 11).²⁸

One of the primary tools to achieve SFM is through the design and implementation of a forest management plan. The management plan is “a document in which the potentialities of the resource are evaluated, the trade-offs among the ecological, economic, and social aspects of management are assessed, and balanced solutions proposed” (Cerutti, Nasi, and Tacconi, 2008).

In Cameroon, on top of the legal guidelines for SFM, the main tool to implement SFM is the forest management plan (see Cerutti, Nasi, and Tacconi, 2008). Therefore, it is the document that constitutes the basis for evaluating whether SFM is happening in the FCD.

Hence, the goal of SFM is to ensure the availability of forests resources for future generations.

However, it has to be recognized, as Cerutti, Nasi, and Tacconi (2008) have argued, that SFM involves more than the implementation of an officially approved forest management plan

28 Note that the study uses interchangeably such terms as timber harvesting and forest harvesting; and harvesting and logging.

(see also Higman et al. 2005, 5, for the major components of SFM).²⁹ But, since legally the management plan constitutes the primary tool for implementing SFM in the country, the study argues that evaluating the implementation of the plan, especially its major provisions, are significant indicators of SFM success.³⁰

To assess the success of SFM in Dimako Council, three major provisions of the management plan shall be examined:

1. Following the logging rotation cycle (harvesting order) set out in the management plan as well as respecting the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) - the surface area or the volume to be harvested in a given year- boundaries when harvesting the forest 2. Abiding by the Minimum Harvesting Diameter (MHD) and the Minimum

Management Diameter (MMD) in harvesting species to ensure the long term health of the forest

3. And finally, reforesting the forest

In theory, if all these three major provisions of the forest management plan are implemented, the likelihood that forest resources are preserved is enhanced, that is the pursuit of SFM is judged as successful. Finally, insofar as all the above standard provisions of the

29 That is why for instance multiple criteria and indicators, which include social, economic, and ecological values, are being developed by several forest organizations in order to adequately measure SFM. According to Higman et al. (2005, 5) the major components of SFM include: a) a legal and policy framework; b) sustained and optimal production of forest products; c) protection of the environment; d) wellbeing of people; and e) plantations and regeneration of the forest. What is more, according to Julius Tieguhong (2009, 431) SFM in Cameroon involves

“many facets: forest concessions, enforcement of legal frameworks, development of forest management plans, forest certification, reduced impact logging, selling of environmental services, reforestation of degraded lands, the use of forest residues, adaptive collaborative management, environmental impact assessments and the development of model forests”. Note that some of these facets are directly included into the forest management plan making it appropriate for the study of SFM in Dimako Council.

30 Notwithstanding the fact that in the country, the management plan is comprised of several parts dealing with forest harvesting, social demands, land tenure, Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs), and wildlife protection (see Cerutti, Nasi, and Tacconi, 2008, 2), this study only deals with the timber or forest harvesting dimension. This is dictated not only by the fact that this is the primary area of intervention of the council, but also because of the inherent nature of council forestry some of the demands associated with private commercial firms have proven difficult to be applied upon local councils (see Chapter 5.0).

management plan, as Chapters 4.0 and 5.0 below shall detail, exist in the management plan of the FCD, this makes it appropriate to evaluate the implementation of the management plan along the lines of those selected indicators.

3.1.2.2 Measuring local development

To begin with, what represents development has been a contentious issue in development theory since the beginning of the field (see for instance the edited volume of Desai and Potter 2008). However, for operational purposes and in line with the meaning adopted in Cameroon, local development here simply refers to ‘concrete’ achievements such as potable water provision;

electricity; construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, construction works; sports equipment; construction, maintenance, and supply of schools as well as health centers; provision of medications; all other projects fulfilling community interest.

Given the above definition, it probably would be more appropriate to talk of

‘development projects’ instead of local development, but, in keeping with local customs, the term ‘local development’ will be utilized here. Thus, when the term local development here or development projects is used here, it is not to talk about the contentious meaning of development, but rather to refer to whether roads, health centers and other essential public services are being provided. The main reason for using a straightforward indicator of local development is due to the fact that as George Niksic, in his study of decentralization in Port Elizabeth in South Africa, has remarked:

debates about the meaning of development are not prominent, however, at the local level in Port Elizabeth. Instead, councilors, officials and even popular actors understand development in an unproblematized and “common-sensical” way. To them, development is about ameliorating the historically disadvantaged areas, constructing infrastructure, delivering essential services, improving the local economy, and creating jobs for the many unemployed people. Development here is about nuts and bolts issues (2003, 5 emphasis added).

Additionally, this measure has been used in the past by other scholars such as Crook and Manor who agree that “the ‘low technology, low resources’ context of rural government in poor countries demands instead relatively simple measures of achievement which, it may be argued, are adequate in situations where what is usually at stake is the difference between no provision and some provision of a school, clinic or feeder road” (1998, 8-9, emphasis original). In their study, the two authors use the concept of output effectiveness to refer to the provision of services in rural areas (Crook and Manor 1998, 18).

3.1.2.3 The independent variables

As mentioned above, the two independent variables of this study measure both the mayor’s financial and political powers. The first independent variable labeled personal enrichment measures how the mayor allegedly enriched himself -or personally benefited- through the council forest while the second variable deals with the pursuit of political power, which is synonymous to achieving the Big Man status.