Los Antiguos Localización y aptitudes naturales

Conventional management of forests and natural resources (NR) in the tropics has been dominated over the past decades by a segregation approach. This approach has sought to separate forests and agriculture spatially, administratively and conceptually into two separate units for management and research (GEF, 1993; Garrity & Bandy, 1996; Instone, 2003b). Impacts of field processes resulting from this approach on sustainable forest management outcomes remain weak, limited and localized (Diaw et al., 1999). One key reason for this state of affairs is the weak integration between science, policy and management practices (Holling, 2001; Ruitenbeek & Cartier, 2001; Prabhu, 2003). These three components are described below as follow: (i) scientific knowledge is a critical input to inform policy and natural resource managers to facilitate progress and change (Funtowicz, 1999). However, the main approach towards acquiring scientific knowledge and development of sustainable forest and natural resource management outcomes remains based on the prism of Western orthodox view and on their segregation approach of human-nature relationships (Sinclair & Walker, 1998; Haïla, 1999); (ii) forest policy formulations have been dominated by global thinking. Forest, deforestation, biodiversity, slash and burn agriculture and recently climate change which are the expressions of global environmental narratives (Helms, 2002; Instone, 2003b), have not yet been translated to integrate social representation of forest, local practices and their knowledge systems, and the dynamics of local institutions (Fairhead & Leach, 1995); (iii) management practices are dominated by the conflict between technical versus local practices. Technical forest and natural resource management options tend to overshadow local forest management practices and ecological knowledge on which rural communities base their survival and livelihood strategies (FAO, 1999).

In the humid forests of Central Africa and particularly in Southern Cameroon, these technical managements are focused on sustaining the agricultural and forest productivity for only for commercial and environmental perspectives (Mala et al., 2005). The opposition between mono- cropping and mixed cropping farming systems, technical land use management plan and traditional land use system, local and modern crops and trees species dominated the thinking around the innovations of management practices of forest and natural resources (Armitage, 2003). These result on weak socio-ecological fitness. In addition, these innovations overlap on the connections of different land uses and on local agro-ecological knowledge determining the adaptive capacity of local management practices at spatio-temporal scale. For example, innovations in forest management such like community forest with their simple management plan overlaps on community managing forests and on agricultural landscape mosaics in terms of institutions of tenure and cropping-fallow-forest conversion cycle (Dounias, 1996a, 1996b; Diaw, 1997; Diaw & Oyono, 1998; Vermeulem & Carrière, 2001).

Some of the failures of many technical management approaches in the tropics occurred because there is a gap in mutual understanding when people with different world views are working together on a common issue. Despite, the recent recognition and relevance of local ecological knowledge as an asset for sustainable forest management outcomes, their integration remains weak in the design of research and local management processes (Joshi et al., 2001). To properly address this gap, an integrated conceptual approach is needed. In fact, local management practices of forest and NR are the results of the interactions between culture, history, society, environment and socio-economic context, have not yet been properly examined to capture the cognitive bases of knowledge systems supporting adaptive NRM practices. The conceptualization of nature by people in the study area is based on the world-views, philosophy of life and beliefs (Mviena, 1970; Laburthe-Tolra, 1981; Diaw, 1999; Oyono, 2002). The local representation of world is made by the spiritual world and terrestrial world including human and natural (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Bantu’s conception of nature (adapted from Gonese, 1999; Haverkort & Rist, 2004)

With this in mind, we asked ourselves: What are the local conceptions of nature within the people of Ntem-Sanaga region? What are the relationships between the components of these conceptions of nature? What are the perceptions of forests and knowledge systems derived from them? How do they affect forest management and agricultural practices? This paper examines the relationships between local conception of nature, forest knowledge management systems and adaptive forest-agriculture practices.

Methodology

Description of study area

The study was conducted in humid forest zone of southern Cameroon within the forest margins benchmark (FMB) that has been designed by Alternatives to Slash and Burn Programme (Gockowski et al., 2005). This benchmark area delineated research and development domains on the basis of

Conserve to maintain communication Providing messages Provide guidance, punishement or blessing Request blessing + guidance Provision and habitat Creation of habitat Natural World Si Human World Si Spiritual world yop Well-being (mvoe)

resource use intensification and demographic density in three blocks (low=Ebolowa; medium=Mbalmayo; high=Yaoundé). The socio-economic and biophysical characteristics of the study area are well described (Gockowski et al., 2005). The habitants of this study area are Western Bantu forest dwellers who practicise shifting cultivation and the study area fully corresponds to the description of the physical and cultural area extending from the Sanaga to the Ntem and Woleu rivers in the Southern Cameroon, Northern Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and to emphasize its cultural and linguistic coherence (Diaw, 1997).

Figure 2. The ASB forest margins benchmark area in southern Cameroon (Gockowski et al., 2005).

Sampling methods

Six villages were selected within the humid forest benchmark of Southern Cameroon, equally distributed between the three blocks along a resource intensification use and population gradient. Focus groups of 15-20 persons were organized in each village, to capture the representation of their vital space and general discussion on concept of nature, perception of forests and local knowledge and NRM practices. 10 persons were selected per each of the six villages for individual interview based on the advices of villagers (internal socio-diversity in term of number of clans/lineages, knowledge of the history of the villages, balance in representation of age (old, adult and young), gender and user groups (such as hunters, fishermen and “artisanal” loggers).

Data collection

Semi-structured questionnaire divided in two broad sections and managed in three rounds: (i) First round with focus discussion groups per village generated agro-ecological map with several layers of information: positioning of all the rivers and streams with their courses; cocoa plantations; different forests and fallow stages and current mixed food crop farms; hunting and fishing areas, sacred places; places for collection of non wood forest products (NWFP); (ii) Second round with individual interviews, the data were collected on: components of the vital space; relationships between society, natural world and spiritual world; perception of forests and how its components affect livelihoods, its major uses and resource management practices; social and economic functions of forests; local classification of forests with their main activities; local agro-climatic and time management knowledge systems affecting forest and NRM practices; (iii) Third round with focus groups at village level was organized for general discussions followed by their validation of information with a large group. The discussions were made around: identification/names of local indicators for the description of forests, classification of forests; management of time, and to respond and clarify with the whole group to pending questions that were found about the individual interviews. Each focus group discussion took three to four hours because some discussions among village members took a long time before a consensus could be reached.

Data analysis

The discourses of respondents have been transcripted and organized by clustering data into meaningful information. A Matrix was developed to deconstruct the discourse of respondents on the

concepts of nature guiding the management of local knowledge of forest management; Extracts of respondents' discourse that brought out some generalizations of the perceptions, beliefs and the ideological values were identified. Traits relating to local perceptions of forests were characterized based on the aggregation of markers of the discourse. These markers were either for utilitarian uses, functional and representative descriptors of the forest perception. Thereafter, for each marker, some element of perceived distance between the forests, its utilizations, and its socio-economic functions was assigned and a percentage of farmers responding were assigned to each of them. Cross- checking of similarities and contradictions were made through the identification of indicators by type of markers of forest classification, tree and animal names, relationships between trees/animals, management of time and management of natural resources.