232 Fuelwood in the Maroua area of the Far North Province of CameroonRaw material production area, producers and socio-economic
context
The area of this study included the villages of Fadere, Niwaji, Laf, Jagara,
Gaban, Vaza, and Kossa in the Far North Province of Cameroon as well as
Maroua, the capital city of the province (Figure 1). These villages represent
the geographical region that produces most of the fuelwood found in the Maroua
main market. Located in northern Cameroon, the study area falls between
latitudes 10°01' and 10°47' north and longitude 14°11' and 14°55' east (Fotsing
1997) and has a mean elevation of 400 m (Ngwa 1978). During the long dry
season, the nights and mornings are often very cold, while extremely hot
daytime temperatures in Maroua range between 19oC and 40oC. The rainy
season, brought by the southwest monsoon winds blowing across the Atlantic
Ocean from the Gulf of Guinea, is very stormy, and the annual rainfall of 700
mm to 1000 mm falls in just the three months from July to September (Neba
1987). Benefiting from the Guinea monsoon climate, the main vegetation cover
is characterized by a formation of mixed tree shrubs and forest savanna (ABF
1989), which Leemans (1998), following the Holdridge classification system,
classified as ‘very dry tropical forest’. Many of the native plants have developed
specialized structures to enable them to survive these harsh climatic conditions,
such as deep root systems, few and small leaves, thorns, thick bark, and the
shedding of leaves during the dry season (Raven and Johnson 1986; Robert
1986; Agroforestry Project 1995). The harsh, dry environment of the study
area had been exacerbated by drought, and consequently the vegetation cover
was very stunted and sparse, with bare soil exposed in some areas. Plant
regeneration was very slow—increasing the rate of forest disappearance already
occurring because of overharvesting and natural events (Grainger 1993).
The study area constitutes about 17.7% of the total population of the country
and was made up of many tribes including Moundang, Toupouri and Foulbe
amongst others (Review de Géographie du Cameroun 1996; Zoa unpublished;
Minister of Economy, Finances and Industry 1999). The most prevalent religion
is Islam, though Christians and animists are also present (Van Well 1998). The
most important economic activities are animal husbandry, agriculture and
woodcutting, trailed by fishing and petty trading (Waffo 1996). Of the three
main activities carried out by the local population of this area, animal rearing
was not labor intensive since the animals were allowed to graze in the wild.
This was because production was mainly for subsistence, cultural uses and
local sales. Agriculture, though fruitful, was not as productive as expected
because of the dry climate and drought. In consequence, the population has
three very farm labor–intensive months during the year. Given the subsistence
level of animal husbandry and farming and the consequent lack of cash income
of most households, many turn to woodcutting with its ready and growing
market (Waffo 1996).
Woodcutting is labor-intensive work performed mostly during the non-
farming months. It represents the most immediate source of cash income for
most households as well as the source of fuelwood burned in households during
the labor-intensive and rainy farm season. Wood harvesting is mostly done in
the cool temperatures of the early hours of the day, while sales take place in
the afternoon. The trade, processing and marketing of fuelwood took place13fuelwood.p65 232 22/12/2004, 11:05