Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

Louis Defo 303

Photo 1. Making rattan furniture (Photo by L. Defo)

The marketing of unprocessed rattan and finished products

The marketing circuit is very short and the mechanisms are quite simple.

Figure 2 enables us to have an overview of the chain.

The sale of unprocessed rattan

Two categories of agents harvest rattan from forests of the region, namely

harvesters-craftsmen and harvesters-sellers. The system is based on the second

category of stakeholders (cutter/harvester-seller) being the most important,

and it is this category that really concerns us. After the cutting and constitution

of bundles, the cutters-sellers transport the rattan themselves on their heads

or shoulders from the forest to roads suitable for motor vehicles or directly to

their living quarters, where it is put into storage while waiting to be conveyed

by trucks, pick-ups or minibuses to the unprocessed rattan market of Yaoundé.

The costs of transportation varies with the distance, the state of the road, the

season, the load and the negotiating ability of the cutter-seller. The average

cost is US$0.54 for a parcel of maraca (approximately 70 m) and US$0.36 for a

roll (approximately 75 m) of small diameter cane (filet rattan) and represents

20% to 25% of the price of the goods conveyed to Yaoundé. This cost is relatively

exorbitant and represents the harassment by public sector employees (police,

‘gendarmes’, forestry officials) or ‘informal taxation’ along the road, and

sometimes the lack of transportation opportunities, a real constraint of this

trade.

For approximately four decades, Yaoundé has had a sales point for

unprocessed rattan situated in the Mvog-Mbi neighbourhood (Defo 1996, 1998).

This sales point is provided with fresh supplies from cutters-sellers coming

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