Document Type: Studies

Guides for responsible land-based investments tend to focus on the beginning of an investment, but there has been far less attention to what happens to land at the end of an investment – when investments fail, projects reach a natural conclusion, or companies need to divest. National laws tend not to contemplate the end of an investment or the withdrawal of a company that has acquired community lands; best practices and international standards likewise provide limited direct guidance.

While there is little information available on the extent of land divestment, available data on land investment indicates a significant amount of company-acquired land globally is not being used for its intended investment purpose and that some lands may be beneficial for companies and communities to return. A recent study of 4,558 land deals covering an area of 179,120,562 ha estimated that 19 percent of deals and 23 percent of land area subject to investment had been abandoned, were still under negotiation, had expired (without any use or occupation of the land), or the investment had failed or ended (Borras et al, 2022). These estimates suggest that a significant proportion of land deals have not resulted in the anticipated commercial use, and raises the question of how governments and companies have responsibly considered and addressed community rights in the process.

Two recent cases of voluntary relinquishment of land by a company offer a rare opportunity to better understand land divestment, and to identify motivations, risks, and good practices to carry out a responsible exit that supports communities’ rights and benefits. Established in 1995, Green Resources, A.S. (GRAS) is the largest forest development and wood processing company in East Africa, with operations in Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique. The company recently carried out large-scale land divestments under different circumstances and at different scales in Mozambique and Tanzania.

Executive Summary

The Artisanal Mining and Property Rights (AMPR) project in the Central African Republic (CAR) supports the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Land and Resource Governance Division in improving land and resource governance and strengthening property rights for all members of society, especially women. It serves as USAID’s vehicle for addressing complex land and resource issues around artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) in a multidisciplinary fashion. The project focuses primarily on diamond and, to a lesser extent, gold production in CAR, as well as targeted technical assistance to other USAID Missions and Operating Units in addressing land and resource governance issues within the ASM sector.

Ever since the early days of the Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD I and II) projects, the issue of the role of various forms of livestock production in diamond mining areas of CAR has surfaced in the project sites in the southwest regions of the country. While participatory rural research carried out over the years has often highlighted the complex interactions between artisanal mining and livestock production, no in-depth analysis has examined the nuanced relationship that different groups of herders have with armed groups, artisanal diamond mining, and farming communities. This report is based primarily on survey instruments and summaries of quantitative data, supplemented by qualitative analysis through focus groups and semi-structured interviews, to assess the nature of the interactions among these three livelihood groups and whether the relations are symbiotic, hostile, or predatory.

The research agenda explored the mechanisms that exist locally to provide security and to manage conflict, and from this foundation, identified locally owned and realistic recommendations these livelihoods groups themselves proposed to promote peaceful collaboration with desired mutual benefits for all. For this reason, this summary of field results presents the voices of those often not heard, including women and nomadic pastoralists. It does so without making value judgments on the merit of their opinions, but to ensure they are considered in decision-making that affects their communities. The format for this report is somewhat different from more classical presentations. Evocative and direct quotes from respondents are peppered throughout this report as a way for the respondents themselves to narrate realities. Results from the analysis of data from questionnaires complement the quotations from local actors.

Definitional questions abound when referring to those raising livestock in the southwest. Ethnic groups known by the labels of Fulani, Peulh, FulBe, and Mbororo raise cattle and small ruminants and traverse the territory. It is often difficult to distinguish among labels used for herders such as “semi-settled,” “semi-nomadic,” “transhumant,” and “foreign transhumants.” This report uses the term “semi-settled” and not “semi-nomadic.” The defining feature of this latter group of semi-settled livestock raisers is not their movement, but that the majority of the people (including most of the elderly, the women, and the children) have chosen to settle in one place. The settlement pattern matters for reasons of nationality, the sense of belonging to a place, and access to education and other public services, as limited as they might be in CAR. That said, populations of long-distance herders, referred here as “transhumant pastoralists,” herd their livestock across national borders and often along seasonal tracks, or corridors, in search of pastures and water.

Case study sites were selected from across six sub-prefectures in the southwest prefectures of Sangha-Mbaéré and Mambéré-Kadéï. The sub-prefectures of Nola, Carnot, and Berberati are Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) compliant; Bayanga, Sosso-Nakombo, and Gamboula are not KPCS compliant, so diamonds extracted and sold from these places are viewed as conflict diamonds. The team conducted field research during the dry season from January through February 2020. The field research team consulted with 834 people through high-level workshops, focus groups, and individual interviews. The research team spent much time in many rural communities, traveling by motorcycle where possible to villages and herder camps. The team often slept in the village or herder encampments as a way to gain trust and confidence from the respondents.

Southwestern CAR is crisscrossed by many commercial trade routes that support both farming and livestock production but also trading linkages with national and international markets. Sub-soil resources also consist of rich deposits of diamonds and gold, often located in and along the many rivers and streams of this tropical landscape. Historically, various types of symbiotic relationships have brought mutual benefits and social goods to farmers, herders, and miners through inter-community trade and mutually beneficial social interactions.

The southwest has long been characterized by instability as expressed through significant banditry and intercommunal violence. Armed groups have variously sought to provide security, protect their kin, or prey on the population. Ever since the 2012/2013 takeover of the country by the Seleka forces, local self-protection groups, called now the anti-Balaka armed groups, emerged in the southwest to respond to the predations and violence associated with the Seleka coalition. Over the years, other armed groups, called Siriri and 3R (Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation) came into existence, ostensibly to defend herders from aggression from anti-Balaka. While this report does not go into these complex shifting alliances, suffice to note that complex webs of social and economic grievances characterize relations on all sides. The attached bibliography provides background literature on this subject.

There is clear evidence that, whether or not they supported 3R in the past, most herders are now preyed upon by 3R and do their best to avoid them. This includes semi-settled herders in CAR and foreign transhumants from Cameroon and Chad. At the same time, a small minority of herders are more supportive of and openly reliant upon 3R; it is important for researchers to understand why that is.

During the 2012–2015 crisis, the semi-settled herders long living in CAR and those undertaking traditional cycles of seasonal transhumance between the north and the south of the country were displaced, but now are gradually returning. This presents many challenges, such as competition over pasture zones that were abandoned during the crisis, but up until the 1960s territories had been reserved by national law and administrative fiat for pastoralists. The field research carried out for this study concludes that the root cause of many contemporary conflicts in the southwest is the growing occupation of these pasture zones by those now using the land for farming, diamond and gold mining, and settlements. To compound this growing competition over resources, “new” transhumants—herders from other parts of the country, Chad, and Cameroon—are also keen to graze their livestock in these rich pastures and associated plentiful sources of water for livestock.

The findings from this field research suggest that a nuanced approach to conflict management in southwestern CAR is needed to respond to these complex social dynamics, themselves rooted in the environmental setting of rich pasturelands and plentiful water. Unfortunately, the southwest is characterized by many polarized reactions to perceived injustice and this has led to a wildly swinging pendulum of retribution by many parties to deep-seated conflicts. While there is much scope to kindle or renew mutually beneficial collaboration built on generations of interdependence, solutions must be locally owned. Outsiders, including government and donor agencies alike, must accept these realities in all their complexity.

The field research showed that at least 50 percent of the herder respondents report having been attacked by 3R, 15 percent by anti-Balaka groups, and 5 percent by unnamed armed groups in the 12 months prior to the research. At least 50 percent have been victims of cattle rustling and at least 25 percent have been taxed illegally by either an armed group or the authorities. The costs of these predations are high. As the local authorities in Carnot said, “When 3R arrive in the village, they tell communities, ‘Don’t be scared, we won’t hurt you; we’ve only come for the herders.’” The majority of herders are caught in the middle of a difficult situation; they are preyed upon by 3R armed groups while also facing suspicions from artisanal miners and sedentary agricultural communities for being in collusion with the 3R.

The forms of predation are many, but the 3R requires herders to pay for protection against cattle theft. A herder with 100 head of cattle may have to pay as much as 150,000 XAF ($260) and/or one or two cattle every couple of months to the 3R. Livestock raisers claim this is extortion and they try to vary their routes to try to avoid this payment to the 3R wherever possible, often at great personal cost. Yet when attacks from anti-Balaka and others occur on the herders, livestock raisers inform the 3R.

Most herders are not involved in the diamond trade and have no personal or commercial engagement with miners beyond limited sale of milk and meat.  That includes most foreign transhumant pastoralists from both Cameroon and Chad. That said, a small minority of herders seem to be involved in the diamond trade. This includes some owners of large herds, who commission people to extract or procure diamonds for sale to traders in Cameroon.

When livestock raisers are asked about the root causes of insecurity, more than 50 percent of all respondents cite the presence of armed groups as a factor; over 60 percent cite weak state presence, poverty, and porous borders as factors. Respondents suggest that the presence and status of armed groups is a symptom of these three factors, but not the principal cause. As a result of this perception of insecurity, several respondents called on an armed group if they deemed it necessary for their security, as they do not believe the state security forces can protect them. The field surveys indicated that 6 percent of farmers and 19 percent of artisanal miners admit reliance on anti-Balaka self-defense groups for security, and 5 percent of herders admit to relying on 3R for protection from anti-Balaka groups and other groups involved in banditry.

The 3R is a signatory to the Khartoum peace process and it portrays itself as the defender and protector of herders. The organization has sought to impose itself as the broker of disputes between farmers and herders, especially around the contentious issues of crops damaged by livestock and stolen cattle. The 3R has broken away from the Khartoum process, its leadership is fragmenting, and it  remains a potent military threat to the Mission de Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation en Centrafrique (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic [MINUSCA], the UN peacekeeping force) and the Forces Armées Centrafricaines (Central African Army [FACA]).

The 3R is not the only armed group situated in the southwest, nor are they the only ones preying on herders, artisanal miners, and farmers. Since the narratives surrounding each of these armed groups are so polarized and complex, it is best to step back and look at the situation more broadly. It seems that armed groups will seek to fill any vacuum created by an absence of trusted and competent state services and security forces. The field research suggests that rural communities facing predation from whatever source will search out protection from an armed group in situations where the state is unavailable or predatory; where mechanisms of conflict mediation and resolution are non-existent or biased; and where banditry, livestock theft, and other forms of extortion are rampant. Notwithstanding—or perhaps because of—all of these realities, a small minority of herders are more supportive of and openly reliant upon 3R, whether for protection or as part of criminal enterprises, including illegal diamond smuggling into Cameroon. While rumors abound that livestock herders are involved in extensive diamond smuggling, this does not appear to be widespread. Among the 800 people consulted during the field research, only three respondents admitted first-hand knowledge of herders engaging in the diamond trade with Cameroon. While there is evidence of what is likely diamond smuggling, there is no evidence that this occurs widely

Interventions which focus exclusively on armed groups and diamond smuggling give too much airtime to a mostly male criminal minority and fail to address the needs of women and others who are seeking to make their livelihood without recourse to violence.

Information gathering around an illegal activity like diamond smuggling is fraught with difficulties. While many artisanal diamond miners admit to selling diamonds for export to Cameroon, these same respondents note that this illegal diamond trade damages relations with their collector patrons. The study could not go into depth around this question, a complex set of issues addressed much more thoroughly by other studies carried out by the USAID AMPR project. That said, while it is clear that herders have capital that could be used to finance diamond trading, capital appears to be most frequently invested in reconstituting the livestock herds. Herders are trying to rebuild their herds that were severely diminished by predation in recent years. The price of livestock sold for meat in rural markets is very high, an indication of the scarcity of livestock. The reconstruction of herds is most likely a much higher priority for livestock raisers than entering into risky transactions around diamonds. That said, it appears that a minority of seasonal transhumance pastoralists may be financing what is probably the illegal mining and trade in diamonds.

There is currently very little social integration between settled communities and semi-settled herders, and even less with transhumant herders.  Well managed and peaceful transhumance needs to yield very visible benefits for all communities.

Focusing excessively on the role of livestock raisers in the diamond trade feeds into the victim-narratives that fueled the 2012–2015 crisis, which fomented a coup and caused the flight of people, cattle, and capital from the region. The priority should be placed on recognizing the role that livestock herding brings to the rural and regional economies that, if taxed fairly and properly, would help generate the state revenue needed to provide state services and security. Another vital issue is to focus on the plight of female herders, who suffer from minimal access to health care and other services. The decapitalization of the livestock herds in the southwest due to the years of predation is demonstrated by the field research data that showed that less than half of the farmers in the areas studied raise livestock and very few keep cattle. In effect, the field research suggests that terms of trade between farmers and livestock raisers are generally not equal. Farmers are more dependent on the sale of goods to herders than the purchase of goods from them. This indicates that capital flows from herders to farmers through unequal terms of exchange, but with cross-border transhumance pastoralism providing capital flow into CAR from neighboring countries.

The field research team concludes from the rich field observations that diversification of livelihoods and access to markets is critically important for the promotion of household resilience to economic shocks. Currently, many opportunities are being missed to strengthen trading relations between livestock herders and artisanal miners. From the perspective of peacebuilding in the conflict-ridden southwest, creating greater interdependence between different livelihood systems (a hallmark of the past symbiotic relations) would generate many peace dividends.

Recommendations to Promote Peaceful Relations for Mutual Economic Benefit

As is expected from any intense field research period, several recommendations for policy and action emerged throughout the extensive discussions and interviews with the respondents. These recommendations represent the points of view of the respondents and are touched upon in greater detail in the body of this report. These are summarized and categorized below.

Recommendations Addressed to the CAR National Government: Provide clear guidance on local dispute resolution processes, including: an agreed tariff of damages awardable; a schedule of fees chargeable for arbitrating disputes; guidance on who are the appropriate authorities responsible for dealing with different criminal and civil grievances; and a whistleblowing mechanism to report corruption and other abuses of power.

Clear guidance is needed on the processes for registration of transhumant pastoralist herders, including the filing of route plans and appointment of a named person to inform the local and traditional authorities along that route, and the negotiation of arrangements for the arrival of herders. The government should put in place a clear and transparent system of taxation of herders, both semi-settled and transhumant, that specifies benefit distribution at the municipal, local, and village levels. The authorities could play a key role in setting up a collaborative decision-making body to determine the future status of the designated pasture zones, issuing bold and clear decisions about the status of structures that block the cattle corridors.

Recommendations Addressed to Local and Traditional Authorities: Engage in the swift resolution of outstanding cases of restitution of homes of livestock raisers occupied by others. Improve collaborative and community engagement in the management of the Dzanga-Sangha National Park, including compensation for farmers whose crops are destroyed by wild animals.

Recommendations Addressed to the Security services of FACA, MINUSCA, and the Gendarmes: Mount patrols along agreed migration routes, particularly at known flashpoints and border crossings, and to protect technical services.

Recommendations Addressed to the Fédération Nationale des Eleveurs (National Federation of Livestock Producers [FNEC]) and Government Technical Services: Put in place formalized dialogues between livestock herders and others to negotiate access to pastures and livestock migration corridors. Ensure low-cost access to technical services, including veterinary services, along livestock migration corridors and particularly at border crossings. Promote security-marking of cattle, whether by branding or by Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips to establish ownership. Require abattoirs to verify ownership of livestock before purchase.

Recommendations Addressed to International Organizations: Promote training in mediation and arbitration techniques for traditional and local authorities, women, and young people. Provide training and support for livelihood diversification, including fisheries and veterinary services, while improving producer access to markets.

Legal exports of rough diamonds from the Central African Republic have declined considerably since the start of the military-political crisis of 2013. While a certain proportion has always left the country without following the KP’s legal chain of custody, this did not represent a major part of production. In 2018, legal exports were 11,526 carats, or 3% of the 365,917 carats exported in 2012, while production continues in all diamond areas. Indeed, according to a study by the U.S. Geological Survey, the five (5) zones authorized by the KP to export produced 164,000 carats in 2017, or half of the national production estimated at 330,000 carats. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the difference between current exports and historical and estimated production represents the volume that is smuggled out of the country.

Smuggling has become dominant and involves a wide range of actors: legal buyers only declare part of their purchases, illegal buyers trade diamonds openly in the provinces and in the capital, internal flights transport diamonds from areas controlled by armed groups, and networks at the Bangui international airport facilitate fraud. The objective of this study is not to map all the smuggling routes, but a significant part of the smuggling passes through Cameroon via land borders and regular flights from Bangui.

The diagnostic study aimed to gather perspectives from stakeholders and experts on how smuggling has exceeded legal exports and how to reverse the trend. Although funded by the AMPR project, the study was carried out jointly by project specialists, officials from the Ministry of Mines and Geology and the Kimberley Process Permanent Secretariat. This approach aimed not only to uncover the key drivers of smuggling, but also to build consensus at the technical level on strategies and changes to be considered by the Government and international stakeholders. As such, the study’s approach aimed to help improve policymaking and identify priorities for external engagement.

The report is organized around three groups of factors explaining the current situation. The first factor is difficulty implementing the KP Operational Framework for the resumption of exports of rough diamonds from the CAR, adopted by the Kimberley Process in 2015. The objective of the KP with this Operational Framework was to alleviate pressure on the CAR, which depended heavily on diamonds for tax income and rural livelihoods, by allowing a partial resumption of exports from areas meeting certain criteria. However, the Operational Framework is not working. Not only do diamonds from areas under the control of armed groups easily enter the global supply chain, the KPCS chain of custody has collapsed. This is in part due to a fundamental incompatibility between the requirements of the Operational Framework and the realities of the supply chain organized around purchasing offices operating with tight margins and high working capital requirements. However, this failure is also due to the institutional weaknesses which existed long before the suspension of the KP in 2013, but which have worsened since the crisis began.

The second group of factors concerns changes and dysfunctions in the rough diamond supply chain. The KP Operational Framework is one of the main causes of these dysfunctions, especially with regard to the lack of funding and the departure of major buying houses, but it is not the only problem. The effects of inter-communal violence in the western regions, leading to the displacement of Muslim buyers in Cameroon, is a factor still being felt as many buyers continue to buy from the other side.

There is also the effect of breaking the “social fabric” of the supply chain. Indeed, the supply chain relies on complex socio-economic relationships and unspoken rules about roles and benefit sharing. Today, the system is marked by risk aversion, mistrust and confusion of roles. Artisanal miners are less inclined to accept prices offered by those who finance them because they know the “real” price paid by smugglers. In addition, everyone is heavily in debt, so the little funding that goes into the system is misused. Likewise, former buyers from buying houses with access to international markets have become collectors. They asphyxiate local collectors without access to markets abroad. More generally, international trends are contributing to the reduction of margins and the evolution of practices. The emergence of gold mining is also impacting the availability of labor for diamond mining and has created new challenges.

The third group of factors concerns impunity for smuggling and the prevalence of other illegal and fraudulent activities. Although fraud has always been a problem in CAR, it has reached a turning point where it has become almost the norm. The more contraband increases, the more difficult it becomes to circumvent it. Before the crisis, at least some of those found at Bangui airport attempting to smuggle diamonds were arrested, thanks in part to the financial benefits derived by the agents carrying out the seizures. Today, the question arises as to why no smuggler in recent years has suffered consequences for their actions, a fact which shows ineffective controls and the power of trafficking networks.

By analyzing these different factors, the diagnostic study aimed to identify practical solutions at all levels. For the KP, a serious debate should take place on the viability of the Operational Framework, in particular the obligation to remotely verify the packages each month before export. In addition, serious consideration of the use of diamonds seized by the Central African government or other countries is necessary otherwise the fight against smuggling will be in vain.

For the Government of the Central African Republic, officials should see this as a rare opportunity to rethink their supply chain system, especially with regard to how artisanal miners are organized, data is collected and used, and the institutional role of the Kimberley Process Permanent Secretariat. With regards to the supply chain, consultations with purchasing offices and external experts are needed to reassess fees and taxes and the organization of actors.

However, no change will occur without the strict minimum of law enforcement, in particular at Bangui airport, but also with regard to the protections granted to traffickers or semi-industrial actors illicitly operating as cooperatives. International trafficking networks require special attention. Nevertheless, the starting point for reversing the trend should be law enforcement by the Central African Government, because until tangible efforts are made, the legal supply chain will remain weak and the Government will not be credible in its efforts to get the KP to completely lift the suspension.

More generally, CAR could benefit from an in-depth dialogue on the mining sector, perhaps in the form of formal policy dialogue like those organized in 2003, especially taking into account the 2019 Khartoum Accord and semi-industrial mining activities and the gold mining that are growing rapidly. The dialogue will help build buy-in for reform, generate technical ideas, and most importantly, restore confidence in the supply chain, which in the end is not about the stones, but about people—their lives, their livelihoods and well-being. Smuggling of rough diamonds therefore touches on fundamental issues of governance in CAR and should be seen as a priority and an opportunity to contribute to the broader process of peacebuilding and economic recovery.

 

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Introduction

This report was prepared under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Integrated Land and Resource Governance Task Order (ILRG) under the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights II (STARR II) Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. In it, ILRG recommends an approach to sustain community-based land rights documentation through land administration services catering to customary and local communities in Zambia and Mozambique. The recommended approach involves establishing shared community land administration services. The key innovations of this approach are a centralized or shared maintenance database to warehouse data from community-based land management processes and simple tools for communities to use to update the data and receive updated records. The technology platform and related services can be shared across communities at various levels of aggregation – most likely nationally or regionally. Generically, community land administration services reflect the core elements of the vision of Associação Rural de Ajuda Mútua (ORAM) and Terra Firma for a “People’s Cadaster” in Mozambique.1 This report explains the recommended approach and why it makes sense for USAID to support under ILRG.

The purpose of this report is to test approaches for sustainable, scalable land administration services for customary and local communities that have legal and socially legitimate authority to document and manage the land and resource rights of their territory or land holdings. In Zambia and Mozambique, the prevailing land tenure in rural areas fits this description. ILRG is investing in a proof of concept activity for land administration services shared across communities. Joint technology platform development for both countries has been considered as an ideal approach; however, timing and the availability of funds from other donor sources in Mozambique makes this unlikely. Nevertheless the two country programs will compare approaches for complementarity and learning. ILRG’s objective is to support affordable access for customary and local communities to services that update and maintain records of their land rights in a manner that is compatible with the public land administration system (LAS). The outcome will be sustainability of first documentation of community land rights (which USAID has and will continue to support under ILRG) and of the benefits of documentation to land rights and resource management.

In this report, ILRG explores the why, what, and how of the recommended community land administration proof of concept, including background and justification for such an activity for Zambia and Mozambique; the conceptual framework within which ILRG’s investment in community land administration is envisioned; and ILRG preliminary design considerations (behavior patterns that define user needs, technology choices, and sustainability). For both countries, ILRG carried out a rapid assessment (see Annex 1 for methodology) of the behavioral norms related to community land management and the range of transactions that are typical.2 A review of existing land administration systems and customary documentation approaches was also conducted in each country. Annexes 2 and 3 characterize the background scenario in each country. Relevant findings are also relayed as the preliminary design considerations are described.

 

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Zambia is one of Africa’s most resource-rich countries. Roughly two-thirds of Zambia’s land area is forested, and nearly 40 percent of the land area is contained within a network of national parks and forest reserves, and co-managed areas that overlap with customary community lands. Rural livelihoods depend heavily on small-scale agriculture, harvesting forest products, and use of wildlife and other natural resources.

Given the close interrelationship between local natural resource use and livelihoods, and management of wildlife and forests on a national scale, community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is central to both livelihoods and conservation outcomes locally and nationally. Like many countries in southern Africa, Zambia has a long history of working to develop various approaches to forest and wildlife management that involve local communities and attempt to develop various forms of CBNRM. However, for both wildlife and forest management, community management of natural resources has been constrained by key institutional and governance barriers that limit community rights and access to the benefits from sustainable use and related enterprises.

Over the past five years a number of important shifts have taken place in Zambia that are reshaping the potential for CBNRM. A new Forests Act passed in 2015, and subsequent community forest management regulations (GRZ, 2018b), create provisions for community forest management groups (CFMGs) to secure rights for management over forests and capture the benefits from use of forest products. These provisions, though quite recent, are already being used on a fairly large scale in different parts of Zambia to strengthen community-based forest management. In Eastern Province, social enterprises such as BioCarbon Partners (BCP) and Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) are working with communities, the Forestry Department, and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, to develop community forest management on over one million hectares of forests and key wildlife habitats.

Zambia’s wildlife sector is undertaking a number of policy and legal reforms. A new Wildlife Policy (GRZ, 2018a) provides strong language on the importance of devolved community management and empowerment; however, the most recent Wildlife Act (2015) does not provide for significantly enhanced local management rights. Chronic institutional challenges in game management areas (GMAs) created by the lack of community authority and ability to benefit from trophy hunting and other wildlife uses remain in place. Field-level experiments with community game ranching, community trusts, and “conservancies” are working to try and develop new approaches to CBNRM at the local or landscape scale, but remain limited by the national legal and policy context in the wildlife sector.

Overall, though, CBNRM in Zambia stands at a potentially important period of reform and innovation, driven largely by the combination of institutional reforms in the forestry sector, growing entrepreneurial efforts to combine community forest management with new forest-based products such as carbon credits produced through REDD+, and ongoing efforts to develop new approaches to CBNRM despite the longstanding institutional constraints in the wildlife sector. Key opportunities to build on these trends going forward include:

• Increasing cross-learning and exchange from field-level experiments that are applying the new community forest management regulations, or developing new locally-adapted CBNRM models. In particular, integrating wildlife and forest management efforts, as well as devolving responsibilities and revenue streams to communities, is expected to improve outcomes. Learning and exchange across community forest management efforts and wildlife management in the GMAs will be particularly important and will facilitate integrated approaches to CBNRM at the community level.
• Investing in wider uptake of community forest management and building on the relatively rapid progress made in creating community forestry management agreements to further scale this promising model over the vast areas of forest on customary land both within GMAs and in undesignated “open areas” around the country.
• Supporting the development of forest-based enterprises at the community scale, from products such as carbon, timber, honey, mushrooms, and others, that can generate sustainable flows of revenue within newly designated community forests. Zambia has the potential to quickly move to the forefront of community forestry in Africa based on the new legal framework created by the 2015 Forests Act, the existing forest-based enterprises already working in key landscapes, and the significant economic potential of forests on customary lands.
• Promoting learning between field-level initiatives working to develop new ways of engaging communities in wildlife conservation and policy-makers developing new regulations that pertain to areas such as community game ranching. Key legal and regulatory reforms are required to enable greater community-level investment in wildlife management. This has been the case in Zambia for many years, but the continued development of field-level lessons, and the potential willingness of policy makers to consider new reforms, may open the door to new possibilities.
• Advancing each of the above opportunities is contingent on capacity support for community governance structures, whether community resource boards, CFMGs, fisheries groups, or village action groups. National-level bodies have emerged to advocate as a collective voice for these groups with government and coordinate governance and technical skills development for improved management at the local level.

 

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Produced in Partnership with the Artisanal Mining and Property Rights Project (AMPR)

Executive Summary

This report presents an analysis of the artisanal mining sector in western Central African Republic (CAR) and outlines some of the challenges surrounding gold and diamond mining, trade and export.

From April to July 2019, the International Peace Information Service (IPIS), in partnership with national authorities, carried out a mapping of artisanal mining sites in western CAR. A total of 322 sites were visited in 7 prefectures. Of these, 201 exclusively mined gold, 61 exclusively mined diamonds and 60 mined both gold and diamonds.
In total, the population of workers actively involved in such minerals production was estimated at 62,042 individuals, 28% of whom are women. The study found an average (mean) of around 193 workers per site (median 77). Children under 15 years of age actively involved in production accounted for 11% of workers. IPIS conservatively estimates the total number of workers on mining sites throughout the country to be made up of between 150,000 and 200,000 individuals.

Artisanal mining is a particularly dangerous activity. Eighty-seven people were reported to have died at 42 sites in the 12 months prior to study team site visits, with 1,154 people reported injured at 116 sites in the same period. In addition, 33% of all 322 sites have been the scene of conflict in the last 12 months. In 80% of these 105 cases, such conflict was directly related to mining.

The total weekly production from the 261 gold sites visited amounted to over 35,700 grams in the week preceding the study team visit. Using this figure as a baseline, IPIS estimates the potential annual production from all gold sites in the CAR to be approximately 5,720 kilograms of gold. This estimate does not take into account possible loss of volume through gold purification mechanisms in artisanal smelters prior to export. Nevertheless, the production officially recorded in 2018 would still represent only 2.​5% of the country’s potential production.

Total weekly production from the 121 diamond sites visited amounts to 195.​8 carats in the week preceding the study team visit. On this basis, IPIS estimates the potential annual production from all diamond sites in the CAR could be approximately 187,000 carats. The production officially recorded in 2018 would then represent only 7.​3% of the country’s potential production.

IPIS estimates the minimum income of a worker on both gold and diamond sites to be between USD 9.​45 (median) and USD 11.​77 (mean) for a 5.​5-day working week. This report demonstrates that pre-financing mechanisms play a key role in determining the income of miners on sites. However, the collapse of the formal sector, particularly in diamond mining, has had a significant impact on diggers’ standards of living. As gold sites offer greater predictability of yield, we have seen an increase in both
production and the number of artisanal gold diggers in the CAR in recent years.

Mining in the CAR continues to be characterized by informality and fraud. Over a third (116 sites) of all the sites visited as part of the present sample cited Cameroon as the main destination for their minerals production. The quantity of minerals produced and exported is especially difficult to monitor as production is only recorded on 33.​5% of sites (both formally or informally). The absence of mining administration representatives and purchasing offices near mine sites is cited as the main reason for the export of minerals to Cameroon, with no benefit to Central African communities.

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