Changing governance arrangements: NTFP value chains in the Congo Basin

As forest products from Cameroon and DR Congo are commercialised, a value chain is created from harvesters, processors, and retailers to consumers worldwide. In contrast to dominant narratives focusing on regulations and customs, these chains are actually governed by dynamic, multiple arrangements regulating access to resources and markets. New institutions have been created, led by project-related civil society organisations and enterprises. These increasingly take on roles traditionally the reserve of governments. In some chains, the state performs its duties, in others not. Customary authorities, projects, non-government organisations and market institutions fill some voids. Often actors with little voice in formal governance create their own messy, bricolaged arrangements, and governance based on ‘exclusiveness’ produces some of the most sustainable chains and livelihoods in the long term. The different governance arrangements and combinations affect the livelihoods of those involved in chains, forests and their sustainability in different ways, both positively and negatively.

. These changes have raised the profile of NTFP trade on both the policy and development agendas (COMIFAC 2010).The dominant policy and academic discourses around NTFPs in the two countries, both plant-and animal based, have focused on two forms of governance: legislation and customary regulation (Topa et al. 2009, Karsenty et al. 2010, Alden Wily 2006, Masuch et al. 2011, Pfund and Robinson 2005, Tieguhong et al. 2010b).The main themes revolve around if regulations exist (Bonannée et al. 2007, COMIFAC 2008), and when they do, their effectiveness (Chikamai and Tchatat 2009, Ndoye et al. 2009, Tieguhong et al. 2010a, Walter 2001).At international, regional and national level there has been a focus on commercialisation as a development and conservation strategy (Higgins and Prowse 2010, Tabuna 2007, Tieguhong and Ndoye 2004), including through certification (Guariguata et al. 2010, Shanley et al. 2008).
For this study, governance is defined as a social construct involving institutions -the formal and informal norms, rules, processes and social practices defining how individuals and organisations interrelate and act, and assigns roles to the participants in these practices, within and outside of organisations and guide interactions among the occupants of the relevant roles (IDGEC 1999, Ostrom 1990).A governance arrangement describes the interplay of interactions, institutions, actors, principles, policies, mechanisms and processes.'Governance arrangement' is used in preference to 'governance system' (Kooiman and Bavinck 2005), highlighting that an arrangement may not always be an integrated whole, as a system implies.Governance arrangements can take many forms, not only statutory regulations and customary socialcultural traditions, but also market-based standards and norms introduced by programmes and projects.Hybrids can arise when different arrangements are combined (Wiersum et al. 2014).Corruption is also a form of governance (Ingram et al. 2015), stressing that separate arrangements which often shadow statutory and customary structures, and are run in parallel by the same governors: the members of a governing body (Angwafo 2014).Without condoning the practice, this definition is different than seeing corruption as the absence of "good governance", a normative view reflects value-laden judgements of stakeholders from specific cultural settings (Weiss 2000).Though generally accepted by many countries and organisations, good governance principles have been criticized for being ambitious and contested as being abstract, based on an incomplete or partial understanding of governance, lacking contextualisation and localisation, and being 'bad' for certain groups in society (Cleaver and Franks 2005, Grindle 2004, Jabeen 2007).
Value chain governance refers to the relations between people and their control of chains (Gereffi et al. 2005) and has been shown to influence how men and women access land (Diarra andMonimart 2006, Goheen 1996), forest resources (Shillington 2002, IFAD 2008, Kanmegne et al. 2007) and markets (Hilhorst andWennink 2010, Ruíz Pérez et al. 2003).Governance arrangements can thus contribute to create INTRODUCTION Despite decades of development-focused policies and actions, poverty remains persistent in much of Africa.In the Congo Basin, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has had some of the lowest human development indexes for decades, whilst Cameroon is now classed as a medium-low development (United Nations Development Programme 2012).These two contrasting countries form the focus of this study.The Congo Basin is the world's second largest forest block, containing more forested land (71%) than any other region worldwide (FAO 2011).The Basin is dominated by dense humid forests covering 36% of the land area, savannah and dense deciduous forests 24%, and forest-cropland mosaics 11% (de Wasseige et al. 2016).The congruence of high forest cover with poverty gives rise to a high reliance on forests to sustain livelihoods of rural and urban populations.At least 951 forest species are used in the DR Congo and 706 in Cameroon to provide non-timber forest products (NTFPs) (Ingram 2014, Ngoye 2010).NTFPs include whole and parts of plants and animals and originate from natural, modified and managed forested landscapes.As Wiersum et al. (2014) show, a subtle, diverse continuum of production systems have evolved, reflecting different human interactions with forests and their species, ranging from wild harvest to the deliberate enhancement of NTFP production in natural forests, to the gradual incorporation of NTFP species into farming systems and their cultivation in plantations.The resulting forest products are used to meet a wide variety of medicinal, food, materials, construction, energy, forage, economic and cultural needs.Most are wild sourced: only 5% of plants are cultivated and less than 1% of animals domesticated (Ingram 2012).In Cameroon and DR Congo, around a third of NTFPs are traded, and around 50 plant and 70 animal-based NTFPs are exported (Ingram 2014).This trade occurs in a very dynamic, changing and complex setting of increasing urbanization (Ministry of Forests and Wildlife 2013), deforestation and degradation (de Wasseige et al. 2012), a difficult business environment and significant corruption (World Bank 2011).NTFP commerce has changed markedly over time, with indications that a greater number and higher volumes are now traded than four decades ago and their economic value is increasing (Awono et al. 2013).This trade can be viewed using the concept of value chains (Kaplinsky andMorris 2000, ILO 2006), a term denoting the activities, processes and stakeholders involved as a species is gathered from the forest, then commoditised, being processed, packaged, distributed and sold to consumers as a product, passing from harvesters and farmers to processors, traders and retailers to the final consumer.Indirect stakeholders include those providing inputs and services such as technical support, skills and capacity building, information, finance and equipment.Chain activities can be performed in one or many locations, at all levels from local to global.
NTFP value chains from Central Africa have changed as globalisation has created increasing opportunities to trade existing and new forest products in new markets regionally and worldwide (Tabuna 1999, Tabuna 2007, Ndoye 1999, conflicts, power imbalances and differential distribution of benefits among those active in chains. Understanding the arrangements actually governing how NTFPs are harvested and commercialised, and their environmental and socio-economic impacts, is vital if their trade is to continue sustainably and provide opportunities for development (Shackleton et al. 2011).Given this context, this paper reflects on how the governance strategies affect access to forest products and their markets, using examples of products originating from Cameroon and the DR Congo.This paper aims to provide empirical evidence of governance

METHODS
This study draws on value chain analyses conducted between 2006 and 2010 of ten NTFPs, detailed in Table 1.These products were identified as high economic, social and environmental value priority in both Cameroon and DR Congo and in the Congo Basin (Ingram et al. 2012a).Eight of the value location are shown in Based on the results of interviews and the value chain analyses of each chain, six governance arrangements were identified and the intensity with which they govern a chain was scored using the governance intensity framework.This combines twelve indicators of the characteristics of governance arrangements and their functioning, based on ten institutional design principles (Ingram et al. 2015), summarised in Table 3.The existence and intensity of governance arrangements were rated along a continuum from strong (10) to nonexistent (0), with gradations in between if some of the criteria were met.The indicator scores were averaged for each arrangement and summarised diagrammatically to enable comparison across chains.chains originate in Cameroon: eru, apiculture products originating from the African bee, pygeum, cola nuts, bush mango, raffia products, bamboo products and gum arabic; and four originate in the DR Congo: fumbwa, apiculture products, safou and fuelwood (the term refers to firewood and to charcoal from multiple tree species).In the two countries, products originating from the same species (such as eru and fumbwa) have different local names.
All the chains originate in at least one of three ecoregions (World Wildlife Fund andSaundy 2008, de Wasseige et al. 2009): humid lowland, montane and humid savannah forests, with the main production locations shown in Fi gure 1.
The value chain analyses commenced with interviews with representatives of research institutes, government staff and international organizations, and a literature review to provide information on product characteristics and to identify major harvest areas, types of actors, routes, markets and trends.Structured questionnaires were developed and tested.These included questions on household and the interviewee's characteristics, seasonal activity calendars and qualitative and quantitative economic, social, governance and environmental aspects of involvement in chains over the last three years.The questionnaires were adapted to each chain and to main groups of direct actors (harvesters, intermediaries, retailers and, where relevant, exporters and consumers).Respondents were identified by rapid assessment and interviews with informants, from which the snowballing technique was used to encounter an estimated 25% of people in the main groups, starting from the selected main production area for each chain.The interviews per stakeholder group, chain and  chains, multiple governance arrangements were found, shown in Figure 2, with their intensity and the degree of plurality differing in each chain.

Market based collective action
Institutions controlling demand and supply transactions and interactions in markets are termed market-based governance.
Unions and associations regulate access to markets by making membership conditional for trading, and traditional tontines or njangi groups as they are known in Cameroon, control access to credit.Market based arrangements govern prices, activities, types and timing of transactions, and quality.These arrangements generally concern access to markets, using mechanisms to enhance access or control by specific actor groups and/or enhance their power, whilst limiting or excluding access for others.Voluntary, market-based arrangements were pervasive in all the chains.On average 90% of bush mango retailers, and 42%, 21% and 32% of retailers in the eru, honey and bamboo chains in Cameroon respectively belong to such groups, and in DR Congo 42% of fumbwa, The value chain studies were conducted under the auspices of three projects (see acknowledgements), using similar value chain analysis methodologies, adapted to the context of each specific product, chain and country.Consequently data are not consistent across all chains for every stakeholder group (indicated by blank spaces in tables).By comparing products originating from the same species (fumbwa and eru from Gnetum spp., and apiculture products), and products from the same areas, the variety and impacts of governance arrangements are highlighted.

RESULTS
Based on the interviews and value chain analysis six types of governance arrangements were found to control access to forest products in the sites of product origin and their markets in Cameroon and the DR Congo.They include market based collective action, projects, customary regulation, statutory regulation, and international standards, and corruption.These are presented and illustrated with examples below.In all the 36% of safou, 10% of honey retailers.These associations and unions setting trading norms and prices, provide support and credit.Around 40% of traders, exporters and retailers of eru in Cameroon were union members, with strong rules governing market access, prices and practices.For raffia palm wine, access to markets is subject to well-established, traditional market rules concerning product quality, the location of markets and trading rules.The four main gum arabic exporters all belong to a national trade association.In the montane production area of Cameroon 41%, of beekeepers were members of processing and trading groups (around half initiated by producers, the rest by projects), and 21% in the savannah ecoregion.Harvesters were less engaged in collective action.In the DR Congo 2% of fumbwa harvesters, 4% of safou harvesters and 56% of beekeepers were group members.In Cameroon, 39% of bush mango collectors and 18% of beekeepers were in groups, and in the other chains 7% or less of harvesters were members of associations or cooperatives.Higher rates in the apiculture chain were due to NGO and government-led beekeeping projects encouraging group creation and membership.Voluntary arrangements commenced in 2011 as beekeeper-processing groups planted and protected savannah bamboo, important in constructing beehives.
Market based action includes chain-wide initiatives.Cola traders use trust-based, informal trading rules and networks to facilitate the long distance, trans-national commerce, dispute settlement, financial support and information sharing.In the Cameroon apiculture chain, quality standards have been discussed by stakeholders since 2008, but are not yet formalised.In 2006, a Geographical Indication was commenced, a voluntary certification scheme regulated by EU Directives promoting the quality and authenticity of products based on their geographical location and culture.EU Organic and The Body Shop Community Trade certification were set up by a honey and wax producer to gain access to niche, high value markets.Certification sets out rules governing the entire chain.Companies also collaborated with the government to develop regulations to fill voids in honey and beeswax quality standards, to ease exports and avoid corruption.In response to declining production and quality issues an interprofession1 was set up in 2006 with support from projects -resulting in a still functioning multi-stakeholder platform.

Projects galore
Projects and programmes refer to activities planned to achieve a particular aim, constituted by teams within or across organisations to accomplish tasks within a specific timeframe.They have ranged from product-specific, short-term to decades of interventions covering large geographical areas.Often financed by grants or loans from international donors and charities, they have been implemented by international and FIGURE 2 Intensity and presence of governance arrangements in NTFP chains in Cameroon and DR Congo local NGOs, consultants and government agencies, often with little coordination with government activities.In Cameroon this resulted in regular meetings of a Consultation Circle of Partners of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (CCPM), as projects proliferated and state knowledge and control of their activities became difficult.As each donor and implementer had its own objectives and associated rules, multilayered governance arrangements -the linkages and nesting between various scales of governing bodies at local, national, and global level (Mwangi and Wardell 2012) -occurred, particularly in the pygeum and honey chains in some of the production areas studied.Project rules, due to the highly geographically specific project activities, were known and recognised only by some stakeholders, many mistaking them for statutory regulations.Project based governance was strongest in the pygeum, apiculture and gum arabic chains.
Sometimes projects compensated for deficiencies in government services, particularly monitoring and enforcement in protected areas.Projects active for long time periods meant that the state had little incentive to engage in governance.Projects created new community and council forest institutions in Cameroon.Some built on customary rules, created new formal regulations and protected areas, such as Mt Cameroon and Takamanda National Parks (Republic of Cameroon, 2006, GFA Consulting 2007), and the Oku Plantlife sanctuary (BirdLife International and The Ministry of Environment and Forestry Cameroon 1998) in Cameroon.By doing so, they aided the pygeum, bush mango and honey value chains, stimulating innovations in harvesting, aiding cultivation, developing inventory and harvesting norms, supporting more efficient processing and commercialisation, and enterprise development.But project-developed rules also negatively affected trade, such as in the bush mango chain, where the project pushed that trade was prohibited in newly created protected areas.Many projects promoted the cultivation of eru, large-scale planting of pygeum building on customary practices.These projects acted as demonstration models for cultivating NTFPs -but the slow adoption rates of cultivation and changes in access to resources mean that a long-term view of the impacts of project-based governance is needed.The quantities originating from cultivated species in these chains represent only a small proportion of the estimated total supply.Whilst projects led to higher levels of cultivated pygeum, decades of inventories, cultivation, monitoring and promoting harvesting techniques were not able counteract wide scale exploitation that led to a three-year trade suspension imposed by the EU due to failure of Cameroon to meet CITES obligations in 2007 (Commission Européenne 2011).Nor were projects able to push through legislation that distinguishes between wild and planted pygeum, which might have avoided the suspension.New legal arrangements were created after chain stakeholders and projects engaged with CITES and EU regulators.At least fifteen projects over the last twenty years supported collective action, hive building, processing, forest regeneration and setting up community forests in the highlands of Cameroon, affecting the honey and pygeum chains (Ingram 2014).In the gum chain, projects intervened to address tenure issues, promoting customary harvesting in Waza National Park, creating community forests, and developing sustainable harvest and management guidelines, but with fleeting or limited success (Madi 2011).
In the DR Congo, projects intervened far less in the chains, due mainly to the conflict and difficult operating environment.However, as recognition of the role of woodfuel in climate change, energy provision and deforestation has become more prominent, projects commenced in the last decade (Dubiez et al. 2012).Projects have focused on reducing woodfuel demand through (re)introducing improved cooking stoves and increasing sustainable supply through plantations and agroforestry.These successful systems are gradually being replicated by local entrepreneurs, as the scarcity of timber due to forest degradation creates a market opportunity for cultivated fuelwood.However supply from cultivated sources is currently negligible (Schure et al. 2011).

Customary arrangements still strong
Forests and access to their products are largely customarily governed in Cameroon and the DR Congo, generally on traditional clan, family and individual ownership lines, and according to whether the inhabitants are native 'autochthone' or strangers 'allochthone'.Use rights are governed through complex systems of short and long-term leases, loans, gifts and inheritances, which differ by the ethnic group and historical traditions dominating access to resources.These norms determine who owns and may access resources; where and in which quantities harvesting may take place; who benefits and how.Harvesting NTFPs on land held by a clan or family generally occurs only with the family's permission.For example, individual trees of species preferred for charcoal are frequently sold by chiefs and families to charcoal-making groups in DR Congo.Cola and raffia products -especially wine -have strong cultural significance and are generally owned, managed and traded according to tradition, by elder males.On communal lands, any community member can generally harvest the NTFPs studied for subsistence use, but for high value products (such as pygeum, eru and bush mango), approval is often needed from the chief or village council.As NTFPs such as bush mango and safou increased in value and commercialisation expanded in the last decade, some families appropriated trees in village forests, tacitly creating new ownership rights from common pool resources.Outsiders generally require permission to harvest, paying in-kind or cash compensation.In some communities, conflicts occurred when such proceeds did not benefit the wider community.In the cola nut chain, customary arrangements dominate access to resources and customs around owning, harvesting and managing the tree, arising from at least two centuries of high economic and cultural value.

Failing and emerging statutory regulations
Value chains with high trade volumes and values, and especially exported products, have been a favoured target for regulation.NTFPs were recognised explicitly as a type of forest legal status of the now unmanaged, degraded plantations is ambiguous.
In the DR Congo, the Forest Code (Law 11/2002 of 29 August 2002) governs NTFP exploitation.It distinguishes between free and open user rights, and paid, authorised rights to exploit and trade non-timber forest resources.Freedom to exercise user rights is limited to NTFPs used according to local customs and traditions.Permits and rules for hunting are set out in two 2003 decrees (N°066/CAB/MIN/FIN-BUD and N°067/CAB/AFFET/2003).Commercialisation of NTFPs gathered under user rights is not authorised, except if the provincial governor decrees a list of products that maybe traded under a one year permit.In practice, provinces had not produced lists, the law was not known by harvesters or traders, and the majority of interviewees did not have permits.In the fuelwood chain, a permit system exists for transport and retailing but was widely unknown and little applied: less than 1% of the charcoal entering Kinshasa and Kisangani had been produced with an official permit.Community forests are an example of hybrid governance.Community forests have been promoted by a series of international NGO projects collaborating with the Cameroon government (Topa et al. 2009).They became enshrined in Cameroon law in 1994, building on customary and collective traditions.But in practice, the community forests resulted in undermining traditional customary rules over the NTFPs in the Cameroon study sites, as the new community management institutions had more power, finances and support from influential organisations as long as projects supporting them lasted.In the DR Congo, community forests were also promoted by donors and projects as a route to sustainable forest exploitation, including NTFPs, modelled on and learning from Cameroonian experiences (Assembe-Mvondo et al. 2011, ConForDRC 2007).Community forests had not been implemented in DR Congo at the time of the study.

Standards and international agreements intervene
International standards incorporated into national law and voluntarily complied with by states, have often created new rules for chain actors.They are often spatially and temporally dynamic, reflecting a species or areas status.As species endangered rating on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species increased, this triggered conservation actions from NGOs, governments and researchers in the pygeum, eru and honey chains.Although eru is IUCN Red data listed, this listing has not affected its trade.The Geographic Indication process delineated honey production forests in Oku, Cameroon.This was promoted both a conservation and marketing tool.The Convention on Biological Diversity, ratified by Cameroon in 1994 to conserve biological diversity and ensure fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic resources led to donors and researchers resource and product in the Cameroon 1994 Forestry and Wildlife Law 94/01 and implementing Decree 95/53-PM of 1995.Timber dominates focus of the regulations, and has inspired many of the approaches regulating NTFPs.Since 2010, the 1994 law has been subject to an extensive consultation process with a multi-stakeholder group focussing on revisions concerning NTFPs, which have been seen as inadequate (FAO 2010).However, the highly political revision process is still ongoing as of January 2016.Pygeum, eru and gum arabic were among the sixteen 'special forestry products'2 listed annually since 20063 .These and few other high trade value products, such as bush mango, are regulated through annual demand-based quotas, exploitation permits, export authorisations and transport waybills.Despite provisions to define harvesting and inventory norms for these special products, none has been implemented.Many other products are unregulated, for example bamboo in general, cola and raffia.Alpine bamboo was subject to a 1993 prefectural order forbidding harvesting young shoots, which were revised and enforced by both projects and customary rulers (Birdlife International 2007), but since the 1980s, whilst regulated formally on paper, has been unregulated in practice.
The statutory framework is however largely dysfunctional, being poorly defined, inconsistently applied and randomly monitored and arbitrarily enforced with few sanctions.For example, despite eru being declared an endangered species by the Cameroon government in 1995, a ban was considered but never implemented (Fondoun and Tiki Manga 2000).Trading and exporting eru without permits is common.A plethora of local and national regulations have sought to control pygeum bark harvest since 1974 (see Ingram 2015 for details), but to little effect.Large-scale exploitation occurred in conjunction with industrial processing activities taking off in Cameroon, and as exports from other African states decreased.The apiculture chain and its products (honey, wax and propolis) were not regulated in Cameroon until 2007 (see Ingram and Njikeu 2011 for details).Laws relating to processing existed but were not enforced, largely because these focus on cultivated, rather than wild, semi-domesticated insects.In the last few decades, the beekeeping sector has been variously under the authority of Ministries responsible for Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Production, Agriculture and Forestry, with little inter-ministerial cooperation, no shared competences but rather competition, particularly for donor funded collaborative projects.Traders developed standards with the government to allow permit based exports.Voluntary in name, compliance is essential to enter the European market.In the gum arabic chain in Cameroon, although listed as a special forestry product, a substantial proportion of annual production was reported as being exported illegally for decades, crossing the porous borders to neighbouring countries.The legal status of the several unmanaged, degraded state plantations is also ambiguous, creating a tenure limbo, resulting in a lack of management, which lowers gum yields.The Transporters and exporters especially in the pygeum, bush mango, safou, fuelwood, charcoal and eru chains reported paying 'to get things done' and 'get past' officials and elites.In the eru chain, obtaining permits and bribes during transport across the border accounts for 25% of wholesaler's and transporter's costs, 24% in the bush mango chain and 4% of trader's costs in the safou chain, mainly incurred during permitting and transport, especially at border crossings.Cola traders reported similar problems.In the woodfuel chain, deeply ingrained systems of bribery were prevalent at the permitting, transport and retail stages, accounting for 5 to 15% of costs, with corruption mentioned as a significant issue by 20% of fuelwood retailers in Kisangani and 8% in Kinshasa.Corruption has enabled rapid, uncontrolled deforestation within a 135 km radius of Kinshasa (Schure et al. 2013).

"New" and multiple governance arrangements
The notable finding that all the chains are governed by multiple governance arrangements, although their intensity and the degree of plurality vary widely, indicates a reality far from the common political understanding, where regulations, and sometimes, customary rules, are seen as the only forms of governance.Table 4 summarises the results and illustrates the multiple layers.The pygeum, apiculture and eru chains were the most intensely governed.However, voids in regulatory frameworks occurred in both countries in the bamboo, raffia, cola and safou chains.The intensity and level of pluralism reflect the specific environmental and socio-economic context of each chain, the product values and characteristics.Regulatory, project and market-based systems arrangements were often combined, with legitimation for new arrangements sought by juxtaposing laws with pre-existing customary arrangements.Stakeholders also created new arrangements through a process of bricolage, adapting and reshaping customary, voluntary and legal arrangements.Alternatively, statutory arrangements were circumvented by complying with corrupt systems.These processes occurred as direct and indirect stakeholders responded to changes in the social and economic context in which the chains are located, particularly market opportunities, to dynamics in product value and demand, with the overriding aim commonly to secure access to resources and markets, and therefore a livelihood for the stakeholders concerned.
The most prevalent arrangement, in all the twelve chains, was customary rules, operating with varying intensity.Whilst this finding is not new for forest governance in general (Alden Wily 2006), it is for NTFP governance.The second most common were market-based arrangements, of which two types were found.One was the increasing adoption of voluntary standards covering the entire chain and introduced to avoid regulation or due to ethical considerations.Such standards were found to have been initiated by conservation, to reflect on the status of pygeum but despite numerous studies and recommendations, it has not been implemented in Cameroonian law.The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), significantly affected trade in pygeum (as an IUCN Red listed and CITES Appendix II listed product), leading to a trade prohibition and requirement for a national management strategy.A national response was forthcoming only after imports to the European Union were banned in 2007.In the DR Congo, international standards have had less effect, due to the much lower levels of enforcement.For example, six tree species on the IUCN Red list are used to produce charcoal.In the pygeum and apiculture chains, international agreements were used to enhance statutory and project-based governance arrangements.However, they were poorly known outside except by project partners.

Rife corruption
Corruption -the exercise of power for private gain -shows a lack of respect by the corrupter and corrupted for rules governing their interactions.Corruption creates another governance arrangement than that intended, for example by regulations or customs.Corruption influences all the chains, varying in intensity per chain.In chains where formal regulations and bureaucracy were unknown, unclear, or unenforced -mainly in remoter harvest areas and on trade routes and key bottlenecks such as ports -corruption was most prevalent and the sums paid the highest.Although the rules of corruption were generally well known, they were unpredictably and erratically applied.This in turn affected when and where, and the level of costs in chains, as well as physically affecting how activities take place.For example, honey exporters in Cameroon relocated processing operations and changed the expedition agents to avoid corrupt officials.Most charcoal is transported at night to avoid the bribes essential to pass through the multiple roadblocks, even when valid official permits are held, demonstrating how strong corruption is in the fuelwood chain.
In high volume, high value, well-recognised products and statutorily regulated chains such as pygeum, eru, bush mango, safou and charcoal, corruption shadows formal laws and customary institutions, and is largely run by the same governors, such as customary chiefs and government officials.Corruption however also operates in chains where no statutory framework is present, such as the Cameroonian apiculture and cola chains.This is attributed to the systemic nature of corruption in Cameroon and the DR Congo.In the lower economic value, local raffia and bamboo chains, the extent to which corruption was reported as a constraint to harvest and trade was lower.Dash, the Cameroonian pidgin term for bribery, known as tracasserie in the DR Congo, governs both access to markets (transport to markets and ports, and obtaining market places) and access to resources (obtaining land titles, permits and waybills; operating without such permits, and gathering in protected areas).Traders bribed officials, and outsider harvesters paid traditional authorities to access resources and permits, despite anti-corruption campaigns.required by regulatory systems to a concession type harvest unit.In the honey chain, support collective action contributed to high levels of social capital which enabled beekeepers to create solutions when hive construction materials became scarce, such as planting bamboo species, using wooden hives as alternatives to grass hives, and finding new high value markets for products, such as organic certified wax and propolis.

Incomplete coverage of the value chain
Most of arrangements did not cover the whole value chain, exacerbating the disconnect between how policymakers perceive chains are governed with the actual practice.The control of access to resources and access to markets (see Wiersum et al. 2014) was generally governed by different arrangements and different governors.Only the pygeum and apiculture chains developed coherent arrangements governing the entire chain, due either crisis, stakeholder efforts (such as certification) and/or regulatory changes.This fragmentation of governance arrangements along the chains created both positive and negative impacts on the livelihoods.For example in the Cameroonian apiculture, pygeum and eru chains when production expanded, the number of people involved, incomes and profits grew but the forest resource base was degraded (see Ingram 2014 for more details).Cultivation created an alternative, economically attractive supply but is as yet insufficient to meet market demand.
Clearly defined, well-known, enforced and functioning arrangements appear to provide a secure framework for stakeholders to operate.This is important as NTFP chains inherently have risks that require governance.Many species are prone to overharvesting due to their ecology, seasonality, parts used and harvest method, such as pygeum, eru/fumbwa, gum arabic and raffia.Fruits, nuts and seeds tend to be less at risk (Ticktin 2004), confirmed by stakeholders in the safou, bush mango and cola chains.These factors make it difficult to assess the quantity that can be sustainably harvested.None of the species studied was surveyed, except for a gradual inventory of pygeum over the study period.A lack of widely known sustainable harvesting norms or ignorance of these when they exist, exacerbate the vulnerability of these species to overharvest.Well-defined and known, customary arrangements governing access in the cola and raffia chains, marketbased collective action in the apiculture and bush mango chains and certification all aim to prevent unsustainable harvesting.Project arrangements in the apiculture, woodfuel and bush mango chains have sought to address species vulnerability to over-exploitation, but were generally of too short a duration or too geographically limited to make a significant impact on the entire chain.In contrast, project and marketbased governance arrangements (such as certification) which explicitly aim to balance demand and supply, control access, define harvesting techniques and non-tangible product characteristics, and add-value, led to sustainability becoming a selling point and an securing long term supply in the apiculture chain.environmental or social-minded enterprises, civil-and nongovernment organisations and by governments in consumer and origin countries when regulations governing process based characteristics were difficult to implement, but demand and private sector enthusiasm existed.Certification was found to be used as a marketing and conservation strategy.This reflects how it has been developed as a win-win approach to forest governance in the region (Rametsteiner and Simula 2001).The second type of market-based governance was collective action, an old strategy (Ostrom 1990, Markelova andMwangi 2010), but one little recognised by policymakers in the region as a form of governance.Unions, cooperatives, platforms and interprofessions were used by harvesters, retailers and exporters in different degrees to control prices, quantities and quality, reflecting local cultural norms and support from government and projects to work collectively.Statutory regulations were the third most prevalent arrangement, covering eight of the chains.Five chains however were only nominally statutorily governed, in practice regulations were largely not known, enforced or monitored.Projects influenced seven of chains.The role of projects in governing timber, forest livelihood and conservation focussed activities in Cameroon is well known (Sharpe 1998, Topa et al. 2009).Apiculture was seen by projects as a win-win product that can be sustainably produced and combat poverty (Asanga 2002), although in the chains studied, this has not been the case (described in detial in (Ingram and Njikeu 2011).The pygeum chain also experienced numerous projects, drawn by its vulnerable ecological status and high volume trade.Whilst corruption touched all the chains, its influence was strongest in the high value, high volume, long distance chains.This mirrors the corruption found in the high value timber chain (Cerutti et al. 2010, Cerutti andLescuyer 2011).Corruption was found in highly regulated chains, mirroring formal regulatory activities and control points.Projects and international standards were the least pervasive, being highly product and location specific -resulting from the historical and current preferences and policy and political focuses of the stakeholders involved.

A bricolage of governance arrangements
'Institutional bricolage' refers to the cross-cultural borrowing of institutional arrangements and their underlying norms, values and social relationships, and the crafting of new arrangements (Cleaver 2002).The resulting institutions and arrangements may foster cooperation and advance livelihoods, individually and collectively.Stakeholders in the apiculture and pygeum chains become adept bricoleurs, creatively changing arrangements to secure their livelihoods.The numerous projects in these chains also meant that stakeholders had access to support and services, in contrast to the cola, raffia and safou chains.The ability of these stakeholders to bricolage solutions to changes in the availability of some resources appears a determining factor.Differences in financial and political power for example, affected the ability of pygeum traders to purchase permits and invest in inventories Weakly-enforced governance arrangements can be seen as counterproductive to sustainable livelihoods.The inconsistent and arbitrary enforcement of regulations created an uneven playing field for access to and trade of the NTFPs, stimulating short-termism and over-exploitation.Profitable livelihoods in the short term -for example in eru (Ingram et al. 2012b) and pygeum (Ingram and Nsawir 2007) resulted in increasing species vulnerability and scarcity.Solutions were to control resources by cultivating the species or introducing or enforcing governance arrangements better.Examples include the fuelwood, safou, eru, pygeum, raffia, cola and apiculture chains.Project arrangements that were not wellnested in statutory and customary arrangements created more layers and generally weakened pre-existing customary arrangements, illustrated by community forestry.When projects were of short duration and un-institutionalised by stakeholders, the governance arrangements they introduced stopped or mutated when projects ended, causing uncertainty, confusion and additional costs for stakeholders.
Novel, hybrid governance arrangements emerged during the period of study.Hybrids occurred as the species upon which chains are based became scarcer, generally the result of unsustainable over-exploitation, for example, in the pygeum chain.The devolution of powers to community forests had the opposite effect than intended, as unstable, inexperienced governors, low rule enforcement and sanctions, and lack of monitoring eased access to resources and markets, resulted in overexploitation.This reflects a trend towards new, multilevel governance with more sustaining co-ordination and coherence among a variety of private and public actors with different purposes and objectives, embracing complexity, and the presence of multiple stakeholders (Papadopoulos 2007).

Exclusive chains tend to be more sustainable
The lessons learned from these twelve chains are that unless governance arrangements ensure that the resource sustained, long-term livelihoods and chains are unlikely.Economic booms and busts occurred as abundant resources were harvested and deteriorated due to over-exploitation, creating livelihood shocks and stresses.The examples of the pygeum, gum arabic, eru and fumbwa chains mirror experiences of other NTFPs in the region, such as rubber (Geschiere 2007).The apiculture, cola and raffia chains however have maintained livelihoods and chains over long periods of time, albeit with lower trade values, being governed by stable arrangements.These stakeholders in these chains however made only a modest living and were not pathways out of poverty.These more productive chains had governance arrangements characterised by well-established customary arrangements, restricted tenure and resource access, and cultivation.In contrast to the largely NGO and development organisation-led approaches seeking inclusive, equitable access to chains, resources and markets (Vermeulen et al. 2008, SNV 2009, Higgins and Prowse 2010), these chains are exclusive.Inclusive chains refer to taking into account stakeholders engaged who may be marginalised, lack material resources and rights.such as smallholders, and the environment (Ros-Tonen et al. 2015, Laven 2010).Exclusion regulated access to scarce resources, controlled supply, and ensured species and therefore chain sustainability.Particularly when species were governed as common pool resources and the ten institutional design criteria were not met (Ingram et al. 2015), arrangements that exclude appear more sustainable.As Ros-Tonen and colleagues (2015) state, avoiding adverse inclusion in value chains is a more relevant concept than focusing on inclusion alone.

Chain-wide governance arrangements appear more sustainable
The pervasiveness of market-based arrangements suggests that they are popular ways to fill governance voids and secure livelihoods, especially when they control access to markets.However, as most voluntary market arrangements do not also control access to resources, the evidence suggests that voluntary market arrangements are insufficient to ensure resource and long-term chain sustainability.Faced with weak regulatory governance and strong anthropogenic and climatic pressures, many of the chains with high levels of collective action still have not been able to counter these pressures.The Highlands apiculture chain is threatened by rapidly increasing forest degradation and deforestation (Nsom et al. 2007, Stewart 2007, WHINCONET 2005, Mzeka 2008, van der Waarde et al. 2006, Enchaw 2010, Solefack 2009).In the Adamaoua apiculture chain, the small scale of voluntary and market actions to date appear sufficient to maintain production levels as long as other threats do not endanger bees or forage sources.The fuelwood chain in DR Congo is the most dramatic example of how disconnected arrangements governing resources and markets enable high profits (Schure 2012), whilst undermining the long term resource base (Dubiez et al. 2012).As certification schemes have only been recently introduced in the apiculture chain the impact of this market based governance arrangement is not fully clear, however a tentative conclusion is drawn that the chain-wide governance approach inherent in certification appears more sustainable.

On the wild side….origin matters
The results show that NTFPs originate from a continuum extending from natural forests, to enriched, mixed arboriculture and agricultural systems, plantations and agricultural systems.Products were often harvested in several of these production systems in the same ecoregion.Discourses, policy and practice in both countries (Tobe 2006, Ingram et al. 2009) have however confused wild and cultivated products and focus largely on the forestry policy.The reality of how the chains work means that agrarian and livestock policies are also pertinent.Whilst distinguishing an NTFP's origin is often impossible (Wiersum et al. 2014), and chain traceability is notoriously difficult (Shanley et al. 2008), origin does matter.Inappropriately governed value chains that do not recognise or distinguish between a product's wild or cultivated origin, can result in grave environmental consequences, well-illustrated by the pygeum chain.

CONCLUSION
The aim of this study was to analyse how NTFP value chains are governed by providing empirical evidence about the impacts of these governance arrangements on the livelihoods of people involved in the chains and on the forest resources upon which these chains are based.This understanding is critical to the future management and governance of forest resources and their value chains in the Congo Basin, given that forested landscapes still dominate the region and generate livelihoods for both rural and urban inhabitants.
These value chains provide examples of how stakeholders have adopted and adapted new environmental and development governance arrangements.These arrangements have resulted in debates about the value of certifying forest products (wax and honey), the effectiveness of development aid and collective action (in the gum arabic, pygeum, eru and apiculture chains), the role of international conventions and standards (pygeum, eru and honey), balancing livelihoods and conservation (eru and pygeum) and the impact of trade on deforestation and degradation (fuelwood).
The evidence shows that just one type of governance arrangement (mono-governance) of NTFP value chains does not occur.All the chains have multiple governance arrangements, in varying intensities.This is in contrast to dominant discourses, which focus on regulations and customary governance as governing NTFP resources and their trade.The focus of many governance narratives on statutory instruments appears wishful thinking.In some chains hybrid governance was found, with dynamic, overlapping and multiple layers of institutions -such as the pygeum chain with six governance arrangements.There are also gaps with no governance of access to resources or markets.Arrangements have however emerged, sometimes rapidly, to fill gaps, exemplified by Cameroonian apiculture (wax) export chain.Regulations have not been successful in regulating NTFPs, due to major differences in the nature of the products and their chains.The regulatory framework has also proved unable to balance livelihoods, trade and development.Stakeholders directly involved in the chains, such as harvesters and traders, generally have not been involved in policy discourses.They are silent 'stars', to use the expression coined for actors in the era of silent movies, often having little or no voice in formal governance, instead acting to bricolage their own 'messy' governance arrangements that work better for them.This has resulted in the arrangements which do govern access to the forest resources and markets being overlooked.The fate of the chain actors and those who exert (undue) control over NTFP resources and markets is also generally ignored by the governments, donors and NGO projects.This is critical, given the importance of NTFP derived incomes to the livelihoods of those involved along the chains, as discussions about inclusive chains and environmental unsustainability do not match reality in the Congo Basin.
Exclusive chains appear more sustainable, but inequities raise concerns about adverse exclusion.As many stakeholders do not have a voice in formal governance arrangementsbut act (sometimes counterproductively) to create their own bricolaged arrangements.Discourses about the origins of NTFP chains are discordant with the reality that many products originate from a range of agrarian, agroforest and forest regimes.
The implications of the wild or cultivated origins of a species are not addressed in policies and formal regulations.A greater degree of inter-ministerial collaboration and uniting of stakeholders across the chains is needed.Such multistakeholder partnerships require long-term facilitation, not short term projects, to work well (WWF 2010).
In the short and long term, overlaps and incongruences between multiple government arrangements appear detrimental to the sustainability of products, and therefore, to the livelihoods of those in the chains who depend upon trade in these products.The disconnect between policy, academic and development narratives and the reality on the ground, shows the importance of taking an evidence and practice based approach to policy making (Arts et al. 2012).The practice based approach highlights that knowledge and discourses have power to create social practices, which can sustain, change and even resist the production of new knowledge.
This paper provides new understandings which can be used by governors: land owners, the state, private sector, unions, traditional authorities, project managers and indirect stakeholders such as NGOs and researchers -to more consciously steer through the complex landscape of governance arrangements concerning NTFP value chains in Central Africa and be aware of the implications of multiple, and different, governance arrangements.
Forest type M = montane forests S = savannah H = humid forests Region: K = Kinshasa Eq = Équateur BC = Bas Congo O = Oriental N = North NW = Northwest SW = Southwest C = Centre S = South E = East Ad = Adamaoua ExN = Extreme North L = Littoral arrangements used to guide the future management and governance of forest resources and their value chains.

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1 Map of research sites showing chain origin locations

TABLE 1
Characteristics of NTFPs studied

Table 2
. In total 2 195 stakeholder interviews were held in Cameroon, 5 555 in the DR Congo, and 61 focus groups in villages in the production areas and markets in Cameroon.Seven situation analysis and value chain TA BLE 3 Existence and intensity scoring of governance arrangements

TABLE 4
Overview of NTFP chain governance arrangements