Actor-driven institutional change in forest communities: insights from the Bakossi Landscape of Cameroon

Abstract

The institutions-cum-forest use dynamics literature is growing, albeit marred by scanty evidence on actor roles in shaping the process in sub-Saharan Africa. Cameroon represents a useful “laboratory” to explore such actor-driven change processes. Recent studies have reported the change process linked to a colonial hangover in parts of Cameroon that came under French influence, suggesting the need for fresh evidence to uncover such change processes in parts of the country which came under British influence. Using the Bakossi Landscape as a case, this article (i) traces the pathways of forest-linked institutional change, (ii) estimates the role of actor groups in shaping forest-linked institutional change, and (iii) explores the determinants of forest-linked institutional change in the Bakossi Landscape. A representative sample of 116 households in 3 selected communities was performed. This was complemented by focus group discussions (n = 6) and key informant interviews (n = 10). Descriptive statistics were used to establish forest-linked institutional change, while the ordinary least square was employed to estimate the effect of actor groups and other determinants on forest-linked institutional change. The results lead us to the following conclusions: First, both forest-linked institutional structures and processes witnessed changes over the years. Second, raising the intensity of actor group processes (in-migrants, local elites, traditional leadership, timber dealership and NTFP traders) significantly decreases changes in forest-linked traditional rules, while migration, state officials and the church significantly increase changes in forest-linked institutional structure. Finally, an increase in the composite index of process-mix traditional leadership and NTFP traders decreases changes in forest-linked institutional structures. Future studies should uncover gender dimensions of changes in forest-based institutions, as well as the role of conflict actors in engendering institutional change.

Keywords:

• actor groups
• structures
• processes
• change determinants
• forest uses
• Cameroon

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the enumerators who assisted in data collection, and to the respondents who agreed to participate in this research. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose comments enriched this article.

Conflict of interest

Authors declare that there are no competing interests related to his piece.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1 Institutions are defined along North (1990) as the formal and informal rules that facilitate co-ordination among people by helping them form expectations. They function as constraints that shape human interaction and the enforcement characteristics of these constraints. It is also important to note that the informal and formal institutions interact.

2 These refer to actor groups that emanate from within the communities or which are located in communities. This is opposed to state actors who are state representatives at local level.

3 Ephemeral, intermittent and perennial was first used to explain the character of streams in geographic studies (Gomes, Wai, and Dehini 2020).

4 For clarity purposes, structures as used here also refer to the actors.

5 By endogenous cultural institutions, we refer to informal rules that are developed within communities and transferred from one generation to the next, through norms, values, beliefs and taboos (Colding, Folke, and Thomas 2003). However, endogenous formal rules could equally be identified to include formal laws instituted by the state, vis-a-vis formal regulations that emanate from international global and regional processes – exogenous in this case. Exogenous institutions here relate to the formal rules emanating from the state or international processes which are codified through law, policies and regulations. They are exogenous to communities.

6 We define natural resource actors following Schusser et al. (2016, 82) as “any entity that has a distinct interest and the possibility of influencing a policy.”

7 This refers to a rural unit, consisting of members with emotional and/or family ties who live together in the same house, pool and share their resources and incomes, while also sharing the expenses.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – Projektnummer (437116427), Grant ID: F-010300-541-000-1170701.