Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

(Darren Dugan) #1
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

17Rattan.P65 303 22/12/2004, 11:05

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