306 Rattan exploitation in the Yaoundé Region of CameroonThese craftsmen sell their articles themselves, in most cases, to the final
consumers. But some among them, especially those that manufacture fine
basketwork articles, sometimes supply retailers. The volumes of sales from
PUs vary throughout the year. High periods are in December (end of year
feasts) and September (arrival or return of holiday makers from the West).
The space used for manufacturing is in most cases also used for exhibition
and sales or at the very best, the sales location is adjacent to the production
area or not very far from it. Craftsmen in Yaoundé sell almost all of their
productions on the domestic market. Very few articles from these craftsmen
are sold abroad. Decision-makers should thus make efforts to establish
favourable or enabling conditions for exporting Cameroonian articles in order
that the country could^5 benefit from the international market of rattan, which
is huge and highly remunerative (ITTO 1997).POLICY ENVIRONMENT
Since the colonial period the state has assumed the right to property on almost
all land and forest stands of the national territory and left to the populations
only the traditional usage right. As concerns particularly forest resources, this
principle was given concrete expression through a battery of successive texts:
ordinance 73/18 of 22 May 1973, decree 74/357 of 17 April 1974, law 81/13 of
21 November 1981, decree 23/170 of 12 April 1983 and so on. The Cameroonian
government reached a decisive stage in the process of improving the framework
governing the exploitation of forest resources with law 94/01 of 20 January
1994 to lay down forestry, wildlife and fisheries regulations and decree 95/
531/PM of 23 August 1995 to determine the conditions for implementing the
forestry regulations. Through these texts, public authorities intend to put
some order in the forestry sector, to reconcile conservation imperatives and
economic constraints and to promote participatory management of forest
resources.
According to this new framework, the harvesting of NTFPs for lucrative
purposes is subject to obtaining an approval (agrement) and an exploitation
permit, the payment of a tax to the public treasury (US$0.018/kg according to
the finance law) and the establishment of a way bill for the conveyance of the
good. This framework is overly ambiguous as far as NTFPs are concerned (Defo
1999c) and the provisions relating to community forests offer more flexible
possibilities (all forest resources of a community forest except the protected
species belong to the concerned population and the official formalities to
gather these resources are not very heavy).
At the level of marketing of unprocessed rattan and its by-products,
following fiscal provisions in force, the seller should pay a tax called impôt
libératoire to the local council where the business is done, the amount of
which depends on the turnover. The rattan processing activity is just liable to
taxation as the other essential parts of the channel. Considering the reduced
volume of their activity, rattan craftsmen of Yaoundé are classified under the
global tax scheme of US$28.25 to US$141.24 per year according to the size of
the PU.17Rattan.P65 306 22/12/2004, 11:05