Michael Kirk (1996):
The Role of Land Tenure and Property Rights in Sustainable Resource Use: The Case of Benin

4.6. Conflicts over property rights to forest resources

The preservation of State forests and permanent disputes between the involved actors belong as well to the toughiest problems of resource management in Benin. Two clusters of problems play a decisive role:

• Neighbouring populations and also external users have never been able to understand or accept the 'expropriation' of these common resources, nor the forest policy which is exclusively aligned with their protection and defence against users. Compensation was never paid.

• The State has never been logistically, or from personnel numbers, able to enforce bans on utilization. The existing legislation has never been properly applied because of a lack of means to do it. (In Bassila District up until 1988 there were only three forest officers for several classified forests.)

What must be kept in mind is that many of the forests could be maintained all this time through classification insipid of population pressure, increased animal numbers and the growing demand for wood for construction and fuel (Fagbemi/Sodeik 1993). This of course to the detriment of the remaining officially accessible tracts of land and growing pressure on the side of neighbours. That is explainable, since compared to the use of common village forests or even holy woods, any local authority and utilization control have been put out of action.

Whoever fails to exploit the State forests in time must reckon with the fact that someone else will do it. Village communities and their chiefs have relinquished all responsibility for their common patrimony. The reigning conditions are those described in the 'Tragedy of the Commons': formally seen, a common resource has become State property, but in reality has become a system of (almost) unlimited, free access (open access regime) in view of the uncontrollable nature of the land tracts. Bribery and the risk of being arrested only form an access barrier, respectively the opportunity costs of illegal exploitation. The deforestation rate in Benin is one of the highest in Africa, estimated at 100,000ha per year (Messy 1993). (Table 6 in the appendix depicts the present state of the forests.)

Involved actors in the process of the removal and degradation of forest resources are:

• agriculturalists,

• (settled) and transhumant livestock owners,

• persons and entrepreneurs who process and sell construction and commercial wood,

• entrepreneurs who collect and sell firewood,

• the producers of charcoal,

• hunters,

• bee keepers or honey collectors,

• traders,

• forest administration.

In the process of the degradation of the forest resources, one must differentiate between the ways of dealing of neighbouring groups as former owners and of those of 'strangers'. This is also significant for the conceptualization of future legislation for sustainable protection of forests on a participatory basis.

1. Neighbouring groups

Basic causes and mechanisms become clear in the forests of Bassila in Atacora Province and Toui-Kilibo in Borgou Province.

• For generations there has existed immigration of peasants which enlarges the pressure on the soil and also the danger of illegal utilization of protected forests.

• The cropping systems are of great significance, for example the role of yams. It has a high demand in nutrients and is seldom planted more than once on the same land. The growing population is always on the look-out for new tracts of land which can be cleared for yam fields and which encroach more and more on forests.

• The supply of nutrients by way of mineral fertilizer, mixed cropping with leguminosae, of the working or mulch material hardly plays a part. The extensive systems thus correspondingly require a lot of new land for clearing.

• Forests are secretly occupied by immigrants and areas within the forests are cleared systematically.

• Bush fires: they are partially based in old hunting traditions in order to hunt the animals out of the forests and are practised at varying times of the year and with varying techniques.

• The collection of wood and wood cutting: uncontrolled, privately organised removal, i.e. also the cutting down and sale to saw mills of various woods (Teak, Iroko, Cailcedrat) or to charcoal production.

• The practices of bee keepers who sometimes fell trees in order to get to the honey.

2. Non-local groups

Transhumant livestock owners (Peulh) use the protection of the forests for their herds. They find fodder here as well as access to water holes and thus avoid conflicts with farmers. Plants low to the ground become decimated along with young trees and the tree density is gradually decreasing. Leafs are cut, large branches are broken off as well and the leaves are used as fodder. Non-local groups, wood buyers working supra-regionally and charcoal producers exploit the forest resources. They collaborate partially with the neighbouring villages and forest officials.

3. Forest policy

The relationship between forest staff and the neighbouring populations are either laden with conflict or marked by bribery. 'Cat and mouse' games hardly hinder the impact on tree cutting and it is additionally supported by 'looking away'. Under the given conditions, an effective protection of tree numbers is scarcely still possible. The capacity for intervention in cases of violations such as illegal removals is only slight, convicted culprits are scarcely punished through the jurisdiction. Through years of confrontation or corruptibility, the forest service is compromised by the population; new tasks of sensibilisation and extension can only be taken over by the service slowly and cautiously as a result of this inheritance.

Inadequate management impairs the maintenance or forest resources; in view of a lacking forest inventory, map material and statistics, knowledge about forest tracts and their production potential is slight. The value of forest products is estimated too low: especially where the sale of wood for fuel and for charcoal production is concerned, the prices are below opportunity costs. Through the affiliation of the forest administration at local and regional levels to the CARDER, the danger exists or marginalising forest interests, compared to farming and animal husbandry.