Land tenure and resource rights

Land Tenure and Resource Rights

Cameroon consists of 6 agro-ecological zones that range from the humid tropical forest in the South through the savannah vegetation to the Sahelian type vegetation in the North. According to Earth Trends Country data (WRI, 2003), 37,182,000 ha of land in Cameroon are forested area. Cameroon land tenure consist of, the 1974 Land Ordinance, the Indicative Land Use Framework and the Local Cultural and Traditional Land tenure systems. According to the 1974 Land Ordinance, the state owns all uninhabited forestland without land title. The Indicative Land Use Framework categorised land into permanent forest and non-permanent forest but only about 30% has been categorised. The non-permanent forest estates are then subjected to local traditional regimes of land rights and this poses a great concern of overlap in rights and entitlements.

Chiefs have got both political and ritual powers to claim sovereignty over land in the non-permanent forest according to local traditional regimes. The traditional ownership of these lands can be by virtue of first occupation for original family lineage; by birth, marriage or local access through family lineage, elders or traditional council; or migrant or non-native can pay tribute to chiefs to grant them usufruct. This makes it common for strangers to think that state ownership implies getting access to these areas without local level approval and it is this duality between national and local levels and the overlaps of rights and entitlements that poses risks to forest project development and management. This has left the local communities in a state of dilemma when government contract are sign without Free Prior-Informed Consent of the local communities (Watch below).

While local communities cannot legally sue the government in a court of law for matters concerning community forest, the minister reserve the right to halt or stop any 25-year communities’ forest management contract if the management plan is not respected. So MINFOF (Ministry of Forestry and Fauna) has discretionary power over forest and lack of clarity on earnings from forest ecosystems services and inadequate benefit-sharing mechanism to redistribute forest revenue right down to local communication obstructs implementation of sustainable forest projects that are geared toward poverty alleviation and improved livelihood of indigenous people for local development.

A 2009 study by the World Agro-forestry Centre found out that palm oil plantations store less than 40 tons of carbon per hectare over their 25-year lifespan. By comparison, logged forests stored 70-200 tons of carbon per hectare, while some untouched forests exceeded 400 tons. Now the government of Cameroon is leasing and selling large tracts of land to companies like Herakles, which has been granted permit to develop large-scale palm plantation in the local communities of Ndian division. The Herackles Farm lease of 99-year implies that future generation will be affected; more deforestation, loss of biodiversity and less carbon sequestration will be observed with major socio-economic impact to local communities and ecosystem destruction of ancient rain-forest. 

In a press release Mr Bruce Wrobel, the CEO of Herakles Farm has these to say “The plantations will deliver a whole range of benefits for the local population, including jobs, housing, health clinics, clean water and schools, while safeguarding the incredible biodiversity of this part of the world," How true is this statement? Watch for yourself! 

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Nvenakeng Suzanne Awung