Gateway to the forests of Central Africa: towards a unified collaborative model of forest dynamics

CONGRESS OFFICE

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PROGRAM

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ABSTRACTS

Le Corum, Montpellier, 19-23 June 2016

350

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53

_{ATBC 2016}

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BSTRACTS /

ORAL PRESENTATIONS

O65-01 – S65 Subsistence hunting in the tropics: A coupled human natural system perspective

Thursday 23 June / 10:00-12:00 – Antigone3

Modeling sustainability in multiple use protected areas: hunting, food security, and land use

change

SILVIUS KIRSTEN M

_{, IWAMURA TAKUYA}

_{, FRAGOSO JOSÉ MV}

_{, LAMBIN ERIC F}

_{, LUZAR JEFFREY B}

1_{Virginia Tech, FREC, 24061, Blacksburg, USA}

2_{Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Life Sciences, 6997801, Tel Aviv, Israel}

3_{California Academy of Sciences, Institute for Biodiversity Science and Sustainability, 94122, San Francisco, USA} 4_{Stanford University, Woods Institute for the Environment, 94305, Palo Alto, USA}

5_{Stanford University, Department of Anthropology, 94305, Palo Alto, USA}

Iwamura et al. (2016) used a spatially explicit, agent-based simulation model representing human livelihoods, forest dynamics, and animal meta-populations to examine how land conversion, changes in hunting practices, changes in human demography, and food supplement policies impact the sustainability of human-environment interactions on delimited protected areas. Land use change outside the protected area initially impacted forest and animals within the area, but the system was resilient to these impacts, establishing a new equilibrium at lower but ecologically robust forest cover and animal population levels. Resilience was also observed in the case of improved health care (modeled as changes in child mortality) and changes in hunting practices. The introduction of external food resources, however, caused large fluctuations in the system—no new equilibrium was reached between humans and resources, and significant environmental degradation ensued. Based on these results, we develop a conceptual model of protected area sustainability that includes hunting management and addresses the trade-offs inherent in the multiple objectives of protected areas and indigenous lands in the Amazon—protection of local livelihoods, contribution to national level biodiversity conservation goals, and provision of environmental services at multiple scales.

O65-02 – S65 Subsistence hunting in the tropics: A coupled human natural system perspective

Thursday 23 June / 10:00-12:00 – Antigone3

Untangling the legal path for the sustainable use and trade of wildmeat by rural communities

in Colombia

NATHALIE VAN VLIET

_{, JUANITA GOMEZ}

_{, SEBASTIÁN RESTREPO}

_{, GERMÁN ANDRADE}

_{, JOHN FA}

_,

ROBERT NASI

1_{CIFOR, BRI, 0000, Bogor, Indonesia} 2_{Fundación SI, SI, 0000, Bogota, Colombia}

3_{Instituto Alexander von Humboldt, 0000, Bogotá, Colombia}

Existing legal frameworks in many user countries lack clear definitions of sustainable use rights by rural communities, and often fail to provide well-defined pathways for enabling the use of wildmeat at sustainable levels to meet legitimate needs. In Colombia, more flexible regulatory bases for the sustainable use of natural resources were included in the 1991 Constitution, recognizing the sovereignty of indigenous communities and their right to regulate the use of their natural capital. Under the Colombian law, subsistence hunting may be carried out throughout the national territory, but only for own consumption. Under the current definition of subsistence hunting the trade of game to cover other basic needs e.g. house rents, health, education, or to acquire commercially available food items, is considered commercial hunting, and is therefore forbidden. Rural hunters are in principle able to sell wildmeat if they obtain a legal permit issued by the Regional Environmental authority under complex requirements. However, there are no operational frameworks under the regulations in place that adequately respond to the specific realities of rural communities within the ecosystems concerned. Notwithstanding the current illegality of the trade, studies undertaken in different regions of the country clearly indicate the existence of trade networks and the importance of wild meat in the nutrition, culture and economy of urban and rural people. In a recent workshop organized in Leticia (Amazonas), Colombia has taken an unprecedented step in providing technical recommendations to adapt the national legal framework on wildmeat trade to the realities of rural communities in different eco-regions of the country. In particular, there is a tacit acknowledgement of the need for a flexible regulatory framework that allows an adaptive management and participatory process approach, at multiple scales, to develop management rules that are relevant and realistic in local contexts in order to enable improved sustainability and better livelihoods without pushing people into illegality. If translated into concrete policy changes, these recommendations will open a variety of innovative pathways for the sustainable use of wildlife, and create Colombian leadership in a problem that exists in many tropical forest countries around the world.

O64-07 – S64 Towards an unified vision of the central african forests

Thursday 23 June / 08:00-10:00 – Antigone3

Gateway to the Forests of Central Africa: towards a unified collaborative model of forest

dynamics

CLAUDE GARCIA

_{, JEAN-FRANÇOIS BASTIN}

_{, MAXIME RÉJOU-MÉCHAIN}

_{, JULIETTE CHAMAGNE2,}

GILLES DAUBY

_{, GAËLLE VIENNOIS}

_{, VINCENT DROISSART}

_{, HÉLÈNE DESSARD}

_{, TARIQ STÉVART}

_,

OLIVIER HARDY

_{, PAULINE GILLET}

_{CÉDRIC VERMEULEN}

_{, VALÉRY GOND}

_{, ADELINE FAYOLLE}

_,

FRANÇOIS BRETAGNOLLE1

_{, JOHAN OSZWALD}

_{, JEAN-LOUIS DOUCET}

_{, SYLVIE GOURLET-FLEURY}

_,

RAPHAËL PÉLISSIER

1_{CIRAD, ES, 34398, Montpellier, France} 2_{ETH, FORDEV, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland}

3_{Universite de Liege, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, 5030, Gembloux, Belgium} 4_{University of Rennes, 35000, Rennes, France}

5_{IRD, UMR AMAP, 34000, Montpellier, France}

6_{French Institute of Pondicherry, Geomatic Lab, 605001, Pondicherry, India}

7_{Université Libre de Bruxelles, Landscape Ecology and Plant Production Systems Unit, 1050, Brussels, Belgium} 8_{Université Libre de Bruxelles, Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, 1050, Brussels, Belgium}

9_{CNRS, UMR AMAP, 34000, Montpellier, France}

10_{Université Libre de Bruxelles, Herbarium et Bibliothe`que de Botanique africaine, 1050, Brussels, Belgium} 11_{Université Libre de Bruxelles, Laboratoire de Génétique et Ecologie Végétales, 1050, Brussels, Belgium} 12_{Université de Bourgogne, 21078, Dijon, France}

Background: The tropical forests in general, and those of Central Africa in particular, stand at the cross-road. The combined and interacting effects of land-use change, resource extraction, defaunation, fire, fragmentation and climate change are pushing these ecosystems towards critical points where transitions to altered states will happen. The future of these forests depends on our capacity to understand and anticipate these transitions, and to identify these states the forest ecosystems are likely to take. Yet, to date, there was not a unified model that presented the best available knowledge on the forest dynamics of the regions. The field is highly fragmented and we lack a general overview.

Method: We propose here a general unified model of forest dynamics in Central Africa. This model represents the best available knowledge on the topic and is the result of a collaborative effort based on expert knowledge and an analysis of the literature. We built it using methods issued from the fields of facilitation, participatory modelling and team science.

Result: Our model identifies the main forest types present in the area, the dynamic links and possible transitions between them and the potential impacts of environmental factors - climate, soil, large mammals - and human factors - logging, fire, clearings. It provides a description of these forest types and allows the layman to grasp the general dynamics at play in the region. For those willing to deepen their understanding, we provide all the necessary literature leads to guide them in their discovery of the topic.

Conclusion: Our aim is to propose as an easy to access gateway for those needing to take decisions on how to manage the forests of Central Africa in the coming decades. It sums up our current understanding of the system, helps chart knowledge gaps and highlight avenues for future research, serving as basis for discussions. An accepted common understanding of the dynamics of these forests will be solid foundation for alternative modes of management to emerge, we hope it will foster dialog between key stakeholders, and generate better informed decisions, more resilient to surprises.

O64-08 – S64 Towards an unified vision of the central african forests

Thursday 23 June / 08:00-10:00 – Antigone3

Ethnophotography of Sciences: using photography to foster transdisciplinarity in the forest

landscapes of Cameroon.

ARNAUD DE GRAVE

_{, JULIETTE CHAMAGNE}

_{, CLAUDE GARCIA}

1_{Ecopaimpseste, 11510, Fitou, France}

2_{ETHZ, ForDev Group, 8044, Zurich, Switzerland} 3_{CIRAD, ES, 34398, Montpellier, France}

The future of the forests of Central Africa is constrained by land use decisions and the response of the socio-ecosystems to global change. The purpose of the CoForTips project is to promote better management of the forests of the Congo Basin, by fostering dialogue between stakeholders. We seek to develop a framework for transdisciplinarity, for collaboration between social and natural sciences, between stakeholders and researchers. How to shift from a collection of fragmentary perceptions of the system to a comprehensive and broad understanding of the multiple perspectives held by each stakeholder?

Alongside other forms of classical research and engagement – interviews, participant observation, participatory modelling – we propose one additional way to foster transdisciplinarity. We have called this approach ethnophotography of sciences. At the core, it uses photography as a medium to confront the perceptions of researchers and stakeholders. It associates long stays in the field, an unconditional positive attitude derived from the field of facilitation, and observant participation. Coupled to the workshops of participatory modeling, the photographer documents the daily life and work of the inhabitants, the researchers in the field and their interactions with locals, and integrates their visions and perceptions of the landscape, its resources and actors in the shooting process. This is done through discussion with the «models» about the way they want to be portrayed, instant photography for quick feedback and pre-exhibition editing evaluation in collaboration with researchers in Europe and on site.

What we propose here is not a talk or a poster, but an exhibition, made of diptychs, with a different take on moments of life as it is experienced in the villages around Mindourou, Cameroon, one of the study sites of the CoForTips project. Each picture, each diptych and the entire set can be understood as boundary objects, bringing the gap between stakeholders and academics.

Our aim is to spark a discussion between an audience used to watch these systems through the lenses of the academia, and that of the villagers, who shaped the way in which they were represented by the photographer.