The integration of indigenous peoples' and local communities' rights into FLEGT processes. Focus on Cameroon and the Republic of Congo

Details

Supervisors

Farcy, Christine

Faculty

Faculté des bioingénieurs

Degree label

Master [120] : bioingénieur en gestion des forêts et des espaces naturels, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

In countries of the Congo Basin where there is a certain legal pluralism between customary reality and official legal frameworks, it is sometimes difficult to ensure respect for the rights of local populations. In recent years, awareness of the need for recognition of minority rights has increased on the international scene. This awareness-raising brought to light many related issues: the lack of participation of local people, with the lack of written recognition of their rights, often linked to problems of corruption and illegal exploitation. The EU attempted in 2003 to tackle one of these problems, illegal logging, by launching its FLEGT action plan, the main pillar of which was the establishment of a Voluntary Partnership Agreement with a signatory country. The action plan covers economic, environmental, and social sectors. Through a focus on Cameroon and the Republic of Congo, the main objective of this thesis is to study the consideration of the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples since their signing of the Agreement with the EU. In an attempt to meet these objectives, semi-structured interviews were conducted with key actors related to the issue, as well as a bibliographic analysis of Agreement texts and scientific articles. The study showed that the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples can be considered from several angles, not only their participation in decision-making processes, but also the extent to which the action plan can formalise their customary rights, including by leading to the reform of the forest code. The findings highlighted the crucial role of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in not only working to include rural people who sometimes lack effective representation and have limited capacity to participate in decision-making processes that affect them, but also in exposing the actual conduct of logging and in raising the alarm when laws are broken, or rights violated. The issue of the inclusion of the domestic timber market in the Congolese and Cameroonian bilateral Agreements is also addressed, as well as the difficulty today of legalising the activities of community forests: although they are an important potential lever for increasing the capacities of local populations, allowing them to formalise their activities and even adding value through the notion of handicrafts, they have difficulty fulfilling their objectives today. The multidisciplinary study not only notes the lack of participation of indigenous peoples in decision-making processes, but also attempts to assess the opportunities and innovations that FLEGT can bring to local people, ten years after the signing of the Agreement with the European Union.