『地域』環境問題としての熱帯雨林破壊--中央アフリカ・カメルーンの例から

Abstract

The economic crisis and structural adjustment in the early 1990s accelerated logging operations and agricultural expansion in Cameroon, which resulted in massive destruction of the tropical forest in the southern part of the country. Even where forest trees remained uncut, animal populations in the forest decreased considerably owing to the excessive hunting pressure imposed by commercial bushmeat trading. Such deterioration of the forest ecosystem posed global as well as local environmental problems, and attracted international attention, since when various projects have been promoted to save the forest ecosystems in Cameroon. While most of these projects are financially and organizationally supported by external sources, like similar projects before them, some are attempting new conservation measures. They emphasize active participation by local inhabitants, instead of applying a top-down bureaucratic method of conservation. These projects are, however, facing difficulties for several reasons. Against this background, this essay first examines the problems involved in the Western protectionism and nature aesthetics that prevailed in the conservation schemes of the last century. It also demonstrates that the new types of conservation attempts in the area, such as "community forest" and "adaptive management", have not yet produced satisfactory results, due largely to a lack of understanding of the multiplex relationships between people and nature in the forest ecosystem and of the complex local ethnic relationships in the area. The important thing is to hold a clear image in which people and forest co-exist in a desirable manner, in addition to securing people's right over the land or compensation for the loss of access to the forest resources. In order to understand the relationships of people and forest properly, and to design a desirable future image, three types of ecological investigation are proposed here: (1) cultural ecology, to show how people's life and culture depend on the forest and its resources, (2) historical ecology, to evaluate short- and long-term impacts of human activities on the forest environment, and (3) political ecology, to illustrate the relationship between the forest-related activities at the local level and the political and economic situations at the national and international levels.