To Örebro University

Motivation: In Cameroon, most land earmarked for allocation to foreign investors is communally owned. The state, however, considers such land as "empty" or "underutilized"-a faulty designation that confers upon the Cameroonian state and state representatives sweeping authority to allocate lands to potential investors without full consultation with communities whose livelihoods depend on them.

Purpose: The article addresses the following questions: who are traditional authorities in the context of Cameroon? What is their place in the complex dynamics of neopatrimonial governance, and how does this influence their allegiance to state versus the people they ought to represent? How do they collaborate to enable state actions during land grabbing against their people?

Methods and approach: The study is based on interviews, group discussions, and field observations conducted as part of a larger project on land grabbing in Cameroon; and supplemented with secondary sources through critical reading of published and unpublished scholarly and technical sources, including reports from national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Nature Cameroon as well as Green Peace, the World Bank, and other bodies.

Findings: It argues that land grabbing in Cameroon should be understood as an outcome of the state's strategic and/or opportunistic choice, within a neopatrimonial dispensation, to enforce its political power over land and related resources. Local traditional authorities paradoxically play the role of state facilitators in the process, rather than serving as custodians of the populations they represent.

Policy implications: The article concludes that such pernicious land acquisition would not have been successful without the active collaboration of traditional authorities (so-called state enablers) who act as "brokers" and facilitators of land deals-sometimes using threats, intimidation, and force on villagers. There is a need for policies to tackle the accountability problems arising from the ambivalent role that local traditional authorities play in Cameroon's neopatrimonial order-doubly serving as de facto representatives of local peoples, and at the same time as proxy enablers of large-scale land acquisition.

Despite the proliferation of literature on large-scale land acquisitions(LSLA) in Africa, few empirical studies exist on how patronage networks combine with socio-cultural stratification to determine the livelihood outcomes for African agrarian-based communities. This article draws from ethnographic research on Cameroon to contribute to bridging this gap. We argue that lineage and patronage considerations intersect to determine beneficiaries and losers during LSLA. Second, we show that LSLA tend to re-entrench existing inequalities in power relations that exist within communities in favour of people with traceable ancestral lineage. Concomitantly, non-indigenous groups especially migrants bear the brunt of exclusion and are unfortunately exposed to severe livelihood stresses due to their inability to leverage patronage networks and political power to defend their interests. We submit that empirical examination of the impacts of land acquisitions should consider the centrality of power and patronage networks between indigenes and non-indigenes, and how this socio-cultural dichotomy restricts and/or mediates land acquisition outcomes in Cameroon. 

This article examines the political economic processes and gendered consequences involved in large‐scale land acquisition (LSLA) in rural South West Cameroon. The study adopts a gender‐disaggregated approach to data collection to understand local perceptions and reactions to LSLA in the region. It shows how traditional cultural prescriptions have combined with contemporary land laws to masculinize power over land to the detriment of women. It argues that although men and women are both affected by LSLA projects, the impacts are much greater for women because what the state considers “empty land” is used by them to secure household food security. Second, it argues that amid societal discrimination over land‐ownership rights, perceived gender differences between men and women appear “rational” in the event of LSLA—men follow their ascribed roles in overt reactions, women being more covert and much less vocal in land‐related contests. New policies that promote rural women's land rights will not only empower them during land struggles, they will also provide communities with greater security to sustain ecologically viable livelihoods.

This article examines the disproportionate gendered impacts of land grabbing amongst affected communities in Nguti subdivision of the South West Region of Cameroon. I argue that, first, pre-existing land tenure systems and a shift to a capitalist agrarian production structure has led to unequal access to land between men and women. Second, I show that the loss of land to commercial interests has constrained women’s abilities to access land either for crop production and/or to harvest non-timber forest products (NTFPs), creating significant livelihood stress for them and their communities. I conclude by advocating that the state should formally recognise customary tenure, and mainstream gender within its institutions (customary and statutory) governing land and forest resources. Women need to be empowered through education and capacity-building programs to enable them to exercise their rights to access land, and benefit from resources.

Large-scale land acquisitions are widespread in Africa. In the 2000s, Africa became a 'grabbers’ hotspot', following global concerns over food security and fuel supplies. Land, with its available water potential, was acquired by a wide range of private and public actors, including sovereign governments, on African soil. Ineffective legal, political and institutional processes have permitted large-scale land acquisition to the detriment of local communities. There are increasing tensions with local communities who suffer from dispossession of land and natural resources and lack power, made worse where there are no mechanisms for relocation or compensation. Rural populations do, however, mobilize grass-roots agency to contest ‘dispossession’. In Cameroon, corporate accumulation of land is supported for its national-level benefits, but this pits government against local communities with women often being the biggest losers from loss of farmland. 'Green grabbing', justified on environmental grounds, also affects local livelihoods. Communities are not necessarily adverse to commercial agriculture if they are able to exercise more control over it.

Large-scale land acquisitions or land grabbing are widespread – cutting across almost all parts of the developing world – Asia, Latin America and Africa. In recent years, this phenomenon has grown at unprecedented rates with Africa being the most targeted continent. In Cameroon, although land grabbing is raising prospects for national-level benefits, it is generating increasing tensions with local communities who suffer from dispossession of land and natural resources. This thesis examines the dynamics associated with the loss of land in a particular context in Nguti subdivision of the South West Region of Cameroon. It focuses on five communities in the region whose lands were earmarked by the state for the development of monoculture oil palm plantations. The main research objectives were to explore local perceptions and reactions to this phenomenon; but also to examine how it disproportionately affects men and women and its implications for local food production and rural livelihoods. 

This research is framed by studies of the ‘global land grab’; local communities’ livelihood strategies; womens’ access to land and forest resources; and land management and governance in Cameroon. Fieldwork included interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation. To attain the above objectives, four stand-alone empirical chapters are included in this thesis, each addressing particular research questions. My research questions query: 1) ‘why do people contest the establishment of commercial oil palm plantations on ancestral land and in what ways do they struggle for incorporation’; 2) ‘Why and how does land acquisition generates conflict within communities and with the agro-company/state’; 3) ‘How do men and women perceive and react to land grabbing projects’; 4) ‘In what ways does land grabbing disproportionately affect men and women; and what implications does it have for womens’ food production in particular, and rural livelihoods in general’? 

Broadly, this thesis offers insights into the complexities and challenges that confront heterogeneous local communities as a result of the acquisition of land hitherto accessed by them to sustain rural livelihoods. Specifically, it a) demonstrates that local communities are not necessarily against large-scale investments in land; rather their concern is how they can benefit from it without detriment, particularly if they lose access to their most fertile agricultural lands, b) explores some of the complexities that the ‘elite-dominated’ and corrupt land deals have generated, with particular reference to cross-scale governance, inter-village conflicts and community resistance in the region, c) shows that amidst societal discrimination over land ownership rights, perceptual differences between men and women appears rational in the event of land grabbing – men follow their ascribed roles in overt reactions, while women  tend to be much less active and vocal in contesting land acquisition, despite the fact that the land acquired were mostly used by women to generate household food security, d) demonstrates how pre-existing land tenure systems combined with contemporary statutory land laws to accord men greater power over land to the detriment of women; posing severe implications for womens’ food production and rural livelihoods, and e) proposes policy recommendations that if instituted will help benefit the state, local communities and land investors. While this study specifically targets individuals, whose livelihoods are strictly tied to land and forest resources in the region, I also emphasized the roles of other actors such as village chiefs, local politicians, NGO personnel, and government authorities in shaping and influencing the dynamics around land grabbing in Nguti subdivision.

Large-scale land acquisition (LSLA) by foreign interests is a major driver of agrarian change in the productive regions of Africa. Rural communities across Southwest Cameroon are experiencing a range of political conflicts resulting from LSLA, in which commercial interests are threatening local land-use practices and access to land. This paper shows that the struggle to maintain or redefine livelihoods generates tension between inward competition for and outward contestation of claims to land. In Nguti Subdivision, the scene of protests against a particular agribusiness company, there is continued debate over ideas about, interests in, and perceptions of land and tenure. The authors show how top-down land acquisition marginalises land users, leading to conflicts within communities and with the companies involved, and conclude that for an agro-project to succeed and avoid major conflicts, dominance by elite interests must give way to a more inclusive process.

This article examines why peasant communities in South West Cameroon have contested a U.S.-based company’s intentions to establish an agro-industrial palm oil plantation in their region. Land investments in the form of agro plantations, if not properly conceived, negotiated, and implemented, pose a series of threats to the ecological, cultural, and economic stability among peasant farming communities, who depend on land and forest resources for their livelihood. Using Nguti as a case study, this article argues that local communities do not oppose investment in land but they contest projects that attempt to alienate them from their sources of livelihood without providing alternatives. The study also demonstrates how local communities, despite being critical of the project, struggle with the company through their relations with government, to demand new social contracts and/or memoranda that could offer them greater opportunities as economic partners. The article concludes that for palm oil plantations to be economically equitable, local communities’ incorporation is necessary to safeguard rural livelihoods and to ensure that provisions are made for adequate compensation and alternative sources of livelihood.

In Cameroon the politics of forest resource governance stands asunder with the positive value of human activity within forest systems. This is partly due to the erroneous perception amongst policymakers and project planners that local peoples’ involvement in forest systems can only be detrimental. Consequently, building on this simplistic view, Cameroon government’s actions and forest conservation policies, until lately, tended to subscribe to a form of hyper-conservationism that required the complete exclusion of local peoples from so-called ‘national parks’ and ‘conserved’ forest systems. Increasingly, as emerging research continues to strongly indicate that forest growth and regeneration are to a considerable extent, linked to everyday human activity, and the direct environmental acumen of indigenous local peoples, the rational basis of exclusionary conservationism has come under serious scrutiny. Consequently, there is a growing consensus forming around the need to comprehensively interrogate the validity of the ‘received wisdoms’ that true forest conservation requires delinking human intervention from forest ecology.

Building extensively on a wealth of secondary and primary data, this study interrogates the processes that led to the establishment of Korup National Park in Southwestern Cameroon. It highlights the extent to which top-down conceptualization, planning and implementation of community resettlement initiatives in the Korup National Park have negatively affected the livelihood chances and socio-economic statuses of local forest dwellers in Ikondokondo area of Southwestern Cameroon. Through a poorly conceived and orchestrated resettlement scheme, the government of Cameroon set about forcefully dislocating local peoples and communities from their livelihood sources. The displaced indigenes of Ikondokondo depended entirely on forest for food, shelter, fuel and medicine, and the marketing of non-timber forest resources provided extra cash, which served as valuable ‘economic cushions’ against financial hardships. Yet, as primary data indicates, the forest served far more than a mere economic breadbasket. The Korup forest in its entirety served as a spiritual sanctuary of priceless anthropo-religious value at the heart of the Ikondokondo belief system, and local peoples strengthened forest conservation and regeneration by establishing strict culturally sanctioned regulations against deforestation. In fact, local peoples rebuilt the Korup forest and strengthened its flora diversity by planting fruit trees such as bush mango and pear, as well as cash crops such as cocoa and coffee. Consequently, the resettlement of local peoples within the context of the Korup project should be seen as a tragic process resulting in significant disruptions in a ‘naturally negotiated’ balance between conservation and human development.

This thesis argues for the need to revisit the orthodoxy of the received wisdom surrounding forest conservation in Cameroon. It submits that the agency led top-down approach to nature conservation actually harms than helps the forest ecosystem, alienates local peoples, and disrupts a delicately established balance between local human development and forest conservation and regeneration. The field data in the study corroborates a growing profile of research finding indicating that human activity strengthens than weakens forest ecosystems. The Ikondokondo people have much more to worry about than the loss of their homes and their ancestral systems. False compensation promises by government officials are yet to be met, basic amenities such as portable drinking water and health facilities are yet to be provided in the resettlement areas decades after their initial resettlement, and local peoples have completely lost faith in the government of Cameroon. Hence, in other for nature conservation programmes to be effective, there is urgent need to; strengthen commitment to put forest people at the centre of such policies, build effectively on the importance of local knowledge in forest resources management, and in the case of resettlement, establish fair and sufficient compensation mechanisms for resettled populations.