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Win-wins in forest product value chains? How governance impacts the
sustainability of livelihoods based on non-timber forest products from Cameroon
Ingram, V.J.
Publication date 2014
Link to publication
Citation for published version (APA):
Ingram, V. J. (2014). Win-wins in forest product value chains? How governance impacts the sustainability of livelihoods based on non-timber forest products from Cameroon.
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A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future! Anton Chekhov. Letter to A.S. Suvorin. October 18, 1888.
Beekeepers resting in the shade of a beautiful, melliferous Schefflera abyssinica tree in Kilum Ijim forest, March 2007
Part I: Introduction and objectives
This section presents the topic and the study. In chapter one the research is introduced with the assumption that governance arrangements in non-timber forest product (NTFPs) value chains originating in Cameroon influence sustainable livelihoods of actors involved in these chains. The scene is set by introducing the main components of this postulation: the forest and its products, value chains, livelihoods and governance. Unpacking these further, links emerge between forests and their products (with a focus on non-timber products), the people involved and the places that these chains emerge from and travel through. A review of these major themes serves to introduce the research arena. The research objectives and questions are then presented. This paves the way for an elaboration of the conceptual orientations underpinning this research in Chapter two. Here the relevance of concepts on sustainable livelihoods, forest product values, governance, institutions and value chains are explained and linked. The research design and methodology is described in Chapter three. The choice of subjects (chains, geographic regions and actors) and multiple, mixed methods (interviews, observation and participatory action research, literature review, market surveys and information systems, trade data analysis, action research, botanic inventories and assessments) to answer the research questions are described and their limitations are discussed.
