Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

Tata Precillia Ijang 235

VM1...n : Village markets

SM : Suppliers market (wholesalers)

BR1...n : Urban markets (big retailers)

C1...n : Small neighborhood markets

c1...n : Final consumers

R : Small retailers

C : Consumers

Figure 3. Fuelwood filière model

Source: Tata 1999.

Wholesalers did not have a fixed market, sold exclusively to retailers, and

were all men. Most of the wood, in logs and split-halves (more desired by

consumers), was purchased from the village markets and transported,

sometimes up to 200 km, to the urban center using 6 and 10 tonne trucks.

Suppliers usually bought on order and already had a market where to sell the

product before they went to the village markets.

The big retailers at urban markets included two categories of traders:

those buying wood from wholesalers and who sold exclusively at wood markets,

and those buying wood from village markets and who drove around urban

neighborhoods selling from their vehicles. Retailers buying from villages

transported the product using mostly the bigger Dina Toyota pickup trucks as

well as regular pickup trucks and bought mostly small halves and branches

obtained from immature trees (lower quality wood from findings). They did

not travel far to buy the wood (less than 70 kilometers from the urban center).

In both cases they sold to small retailers and consumers and they were all

men. Some of the large harvested branches were used in the urban centers as

poles for supporting dilapidated houses, while others were used for the building

and roofing of houses.

Sales between small retailers and big consumers took place exclusively in

small neighborhood markets and in front of households. More than 80% of these

retailers were women and young children (Awah 1995; Tata 1999). People who

gathered wood from degraded forests around the urban center and from other

sources were also represented in this category. Most of the wood was of poor

quality.

Final consumers such as urban households, meat roasters and restaurant

owners made up 67% of the total energy consumed in the urban center (Assan

1991).

Woodsellers sold to whomever they chose, at any time. They were often

needy, jobless men who moved on to other activities as soon as possible.

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