Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

234 Fuelwood in the Maroua area of the Far North Province of Cameroon

entirely within the study area, though small quantities are exported to Chad

and Nigeria on a very rare and informal basis.

Chain of production and trade

The chain of production and trade is quite short, passing from the forest and

village markets through the urban markets and to the consumers. This is most

clearly depicted in Figure 2, where the directions of the arrows indicate the

movement of wood from exploiters to consumers.

The main processing of this product consisted of splitting logs and big

branches into halves and smaller pieces. Wood marketed as large, medium

and small halves was what consumers most preferred. A result of this processing

was the addition of value; split halves were worth more per unit than logs. At

each stage in the marketing chain, the seller captured value by splitting the

wood into smaller pieces. The only by-product from the processing and

consumption of this product was charcoal, and its use was insignificant to the

producer-to-consumer chain in the study area.

Some of the fuelwood gathered was consumed by the exploiters, and

passers-by in the village also purchased wood for consumption and retail.

However, wholesalers served as the main middlemen between villagers and

urban consumers. In urban areas, wholesalers sold the wood to retailers, who

finally sold it to consumers. The modified chain of production or fuelwood

filière presented in Figure 3 explains this process in greater detail.

Village markets situated in the forest and roadsides sold to wholesalers,

retailers and some consumers. Sellers in the forest markets were mostly young

men, whereas at the roadside all classes of people were found, and about 30%

of them were women. Most of the wood harvested in the villages for household

use was harvested by women and younger children (Awah 1995), and was

transported on head, animal, truck and bicycle. Because women were busy

with other household tasks, and their husbands’ permission was needed for

them to be involved in any external activity, their involvement in wood sales

was minimal.

Figure 2. Simplified fuelwood exploitation and marketing agents’ chain

Source: Tata 1999.

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