TITLE:
Constraints to Tropical Forest Conservation and Successful Monitoring and Assessment of Land Uses Cover and Change: Do the Forest Definition and Administration Really Matter?
AUTHORS:
Koffi Ayewa Bassan, Kouami Kokou, Erin O. Sills
KEYWORDS:
Sustainable Forest Management, Cultural Forestry, Forest Definition, Land Classification, Local People
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Resources,
Vol.11 No.1,
January
16,
2020
ABSTRACT: We
examine the constraints to conservation and to successful forestlands’
monitoring/assessments in central Togo through GIS spatial analyses and through
a critical overview of the current forestry administration’s model. The major
findings are that the land classification based on few inventory parameters
cannot substitute for “what forest is”, rather these inventory parameters constitute a mean to sound forest
management and conservation when relevantly decided. Also as these parameters
measured from satellite imagery are supplemented by continuous fine management
data they may consistently contribute to the classification of the vegetation
cover. This helps to suggest that solution to forest degradation/deforestation,
and monitoring/ assessment requires data refinement through local forest management.
Else, the actual forestry administration is local communities and indigenous people’s needs biased because it has been negligent of the cultural forestry practices, the
major constraints to conservation and the monitoring/assessment of forest
lands. As a common pool-resource, the
questions relative to forest cannot be addressed at a single environmental
concerns level. Interests are multiple and various along the spectrum from the
global environment level to the local environmental level that should be
accounted for. Thus we recommend a reconsideration of the forestry
administration model. What is required are simple policies processes to define
forest management plans that promote simultaneously sustainable forest
management while accounting for any stakeholder concern, importantly the
cultural forestry that addresses specific local communities and indigenous people’s forest related interests.