2. RECOMMENDATIONS

This feasibility study reveals the first steps taken along a complicated and complex research path which has only recently been identified. As very little work has been done in this area, and whatever work has been done is generally unpublished or not easily accessible, many aspects need research attention and monitoring. It is strongly urged therefore, that the European Union continue its support of social science research in the area of forest conservation by emphasising the forest-city optic and by participating in the constitution of a research support structure. Our preliminary research and mission to central Africa has enabled us to establish the methodological approaches and contacts with local researchers necessary to carry out the following recommendations.

2.1 Much more detailed data is needed on the pilot studies already carried out on bush meat, charcoal and other forest products, as well as on anthropological perceptions. Concerning the socio-economic aspects of forest products in the urban context, actions to be taken include:

- inventorying volume at formal market areas and along informal commercial networks;
- establishing their real costs compared with alternative products;
- elaborating an ethno-linguistic nomenclature of forest products consumed in cities;
- identifying and making contact with the social actors participating in the chain of exchange.

This is important because forest-city relations are strongly influenced by these actors who know how to decode the economic messages relating to supply and demand;

- establishing the ethnicity of these social actors;
- establishing the ethnicity and socio-economic level of consumers of forest products;
- investigating gender roles.

2.2 With respect to perceptions, more detailed anthropological analysis is needed concerning:

- the forest space;
- conservation;
- ecology;
- the environment;
- wildlife;
- hinterland land tenure systems;
- forest peoples (hunters-gatherers, shifting cultivators, river people);
- professionals or semi-professionals whose livelihoods are linked to forest exploitation (hunters, poachers, bush meat traders, those working in the timber sector, etc.);
- human relationships between city dwellers and their forest-based family;
- how city dwellers identify themselves vis-a-vis their forest origins;
- how they perceive the question of land use in surrounding forest areas.

2.3 The geographical scope of research should be extended:

-to capitals or major cities in other countries where ECOFAC is active, i.e. Bangui, Brazzaville, Bata;
-to provincial urban areas which lie deep in the tropical forest such as Mbandaka, Bukavu or Kisangani (Zaire); Ouesso (Congo Brazzaville); Makokou or Oyem (Gabon); Ebolowa (Cameroon); Nola (Central African Republic).

2.4 Milieu focus should also be extended. As rivers and river peoples are intimately associated with the forest biome, use and perceptions of central Africa's great rivers e.g. the Ogooué, Sanaga, Sangha, Ubangui, Zaire, should be examined.

2.5 Investigations should be made into how small-scale forest-based industrial, agricultural or craft products can be commercialised in cities. Forest peoples are increasingly involved in the process of monetarisation so commercialisation of such products can stabilise these populations in their forest villages. This can contribute to the valorisation of the forest in the eyes of those who live there while diminishing migration into urban areas.(1)

2.6 Further study should be conducted concerning local acceptance of fuel efficient grills in those cities where charcoal is used extensively. They can be manufactured and distributed locally at relatively low prices. Use of such grills could diminish deforestation around cities and tree removal within the cities themselves. (Similar projects have been carried out in the drought-beset Sahel region.)

2.7 Alternatives to bush meat consumption in urban areas should be developed and attitudes tested. Avenues to explore include adapting conventional livestock breeding techniques to local conditions; game ranching, game cropping, game farming; or offering urban consumers raised meat which has been smoked according to local custom (see Section 7.1.2).

2.8 Public awareness and public relations structures should be put in place, in Central African cities, enabling local authorities to stimulate interest and concern for the forest. Public awareness is a large part of conservation yet school curriculum, or more importantly the media has so far devoted insufficient attention to the debate.

2.9 Greater attention should be given to the elaboration of systems models in the area of forest conservation. If forest conservation is considered as a "system", then the various social science research factors described below are "sub-systems" which interact and influence the functioning of the "system". The forest-city interface is likewise a system with dependent sub-systems which could be understood more clearly through modelling techniques.

2.10 Before research on the forest-city interface can be meaningful it must be centralised. It is consequently recommended that an operational research support structure be formally constituted. It could be located at the Centre of Cultural Anthropology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles; a Centre which has already developed expertise in the area of forest conservation research and the forest-city interface, as well as having accumulated a specialised library on related matters. One full-time researcher and one half-time documentalist will be needed in Brussels. Either four half-time or two full-time researchers / co-ordinators should be recruited in Yaoundé, Kinshasa and Gabon (in a first phase). The research support structure in general and these persons in particular (who have already been identified) will work jointly to:

- collect, inventory, classify and house related documentation and cartographic resources;
- co-ordinate pilot studies and research projects in central Africa;
- provide badly needed infrastructure to African partners in local universities and research centres;
- maintain a data bank housing and sharing documentation and live information on projects, researchers, NGOs and contracts (this data bank should be connected to on-line physical information networks which will facilitate communication between researchers in Europe and the US and between Europe and Africa);
- work with local leaders in central Africa by making recommendations; by participating in environmental public awareness and education campaigns; by sharing information on conservation legislation and trends; by supplying information on international funding possibilities for forest conservation; by performing public relations and lobbying functions on the international level. The public relations dimension is of primary importance because while there is interest in forest conservation on the local and international levels, more harmonisation and concerted action is needed;
- work with the European Union by orchestrating or carrying out feasibility studies and short- or long-term projects; by making recommendations; by supporting other European Union forest-related projects such as ECOFAC; by monitoring and evaluating conservation activities being undertaken by national governments and other environmental groups.