Will the DRC community forest model be viable?

Since the second half of the 2000s, several options on the implementation of community forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been discussed in the country's technical and political circles. Propositions and pilot testing have increased in the last 2-3 years, in parallel with the promise of substantial international funding. As a result, several initiatives have been tested or are under development in the forest area of the DRC. Yet, the regulatory framework remains incomplete and very much debated. In the absence of a clear regulation and indeed political direction, the funding of current initiatives is often proposed with divergent purposes and conducted with different approaches. We reviewed the current experiences and found that none has conducted an estimation of the potential financial return of the business models they elaborated for/with the concerned communities. We thus conducted a socio-economic feasibility study for three case studies in Orientale province, by estimating the costs of developing/implementing activities and the benefits expected for communities on a 5 years horizon. Four main results are drawn from this analysis: (1) all experiences show a negative financial performance, the initial and implementation costs being significantly above the medium-term profits; (2) the main benefit expected by communities is clarifying and securing their customary land tenure; (3) a majority of the activities conducted in the framework of the 'community forest' model deal with rural development and not forestry operations per se, and therefore could be promoted and conducted without having to engage in a process of designing, establishing and maintaining the community forest model; (4) local organizations set up to oversee community forests are complex, expensive and little known by most inhabitants. We conclude by discussing and proposing a few models that could improve the effectiveness of community forestry in the DRC.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Lescuyer, Guillaume, Cerutti, Paolo Omar, Tsanga, Raphael, Nasi, Robert
Format:	conference_item biblioteca
Language:	eng
Published:	Forstliche Versuchs- und Forschungsanstalt (FVA)
Subjects:	K01 - Foresterie - Considérations générales, K10 - Production forestière,
Online Access:	http://agritrop.cirad.fr/586629/ http://agritrop.cirad.fr/586629/1/ID586629.pdf
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