Community families throughout tropical regions derive an important share of their income from multiple forest products, with generally positive outcomes on their livelihoods. The production of these products in a multiple-use forest management scheme (MFM, the production of multiple forest products within a single management unit) encompasses many (yet) unknown socioeconomic and ecological feedbacks.

This publication is based on a range of past studies on ICCAs conducted in several regions of the world in the last two decades, and, most recently, on 19 country level case studies. The latter were commissioned as part of a project on ICCA Recognition and Support, undertaken by the ICCA Consortium, coordinated by Kalpavriksh.

It also incorporates some key findings of a parallel project on ICCA Legislation, also undertaken by the ICCA Consortium, and coordinated by Natural Justice.

The publication intends to:

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) initiatives are being launched over much of the global South. These initiatives seek to restore ecological functions and associated ecosystem goods and services while improving social outcomes (Mansourian and Vallauri 2014). The scale of these initiatives is such that large geographic areas as well as large numbers of people will be affected in the countries that choose to participate in them.

This brief study has been produced by the partners of the CoNGOs consortium to share our different knowledge and experience, and to set out a joint understanding of the current state of play in relation to community forestry in Cameroon.