Careful extraction methods and soft management of NTFPs

curative powers including ailments like: heart problems, witchcraft cleansing, and spleen for children, stomach and navels problems. Justifying its use in indigenous medicines, a study argues that n-hexane extracts from barks of njangsanga trees have antimicrobial properties that are more effective against Streptococcus faecalis than many drugs in the market today (Momeni et al, 2005:386). Ikondo Kondo I people could not mention many medicinal uses of forest products, which explains their little or no reliance on folk medicine due to closeness of a modern health care facility in Mundemba town.

The multiple uses of bitter cola and alligator pepper are discussed in Chapter 4. However, in addition to that information, locals use alligator pepper to ward off evil spirits and many individuals and households keep hold of it on a permanent basis. This re-enforces the widespread believe in ghosts as evidenced in two reported cases:

Box 2: Use of alligator pepper to ward-off evil spirits

An Ikondo Kondo I informant reports that evil spirits use to trouble her family at nights.

They had horrible nightmares while children cry in their sleep. She attributes it to angry ancestors over her marriage with a man who hails from a hated lineage. A witchdoctor from Ekoneman Ojong (a village on the fringes of the Korup National Park) made some magical spells, communicated with the angry ancestors and then transmitted their advice to his client. Among the medicines given to her by the ‘medicineman’ was a dried alligator pepper fruit. She had to macerate and dissolve seven seeds in water every night and sprinkle the solution around their house for seven nights. These orders were kept and no witches and nightmares troubled the family again, she confessed.

Box 3: Use of alligator pepper to prevent mystical disappearance of money

Locals report that they always have to wrap their money with alligator pepper seeds to prevent it from being stolen in a mystical way when they go to the big towns. Informants said that it works and has saved his money in many instances. In a related case, women and children take seeds of alligator pepper to the market so that the money from sales of their commodities does not disappear mysteriously.

herbs and barks of trees by healers or for local use is sustainable. An array of wild plants sourced from secondary forest, the edges of paths, farms, village peripheries and small gardens owned by specialist healers are carefully harvested and propagated. It is reported that species used for severe illnesses are sourced from high edged forest (Shiembo, 1999).

Table 13: Medicinal uses and extraction methods of five forest plants

Name of NTFPs Medicinal uses /

Treatment Method of

harvest Part of plant

used Conservation Activity Njansanga

Ricinodendron heudelotii

- Heart problems - Witchcraft cleansing - Spleen for children - Stomach problems - Navel

- Picking - Seeds

- Bark

- Grows naturally - Propagate in forest - Propagate at home

Bush Mango

Irvingia gabonensis

- Fodder - Chewing sticks - Anti-ulcer - Diarrhea - Toothache - Hernias - Yellow fever - Poison antidote

- Picking - Debarking - Cutting leaves

- Roots - Seeds - Leaves - Stem

- Grows naturally - Wildings transplant

Eru

Gnetum Africanum

- Protein source - Essential amino acids - Nausea

- Poison antidote - Warts and boils - Pain of childbirth

- Picking - Cutting leaves - Cutting climber

- Leaves

- Tisane of stem - Grows naturally - Propagate in forest

Bitter kola Garcinia kola

- Constipation - Cough syrup - Stomach disorder - Poison antidote

- Picking - Seeds, - Juice, - Tree bark

- Propagate in forest - Propagate at home - Grows naturally

Alligator pepper

Afromomum melegueta

-Controls over-bleeding - Abscess

- Cough

- Stomach problems - Spleen for children - Blood clotting - Fractures

- Cutting

- Picking - Fruits - Grains

- Grows naturally - Propagate in forest - Propagate at home

Through semi-structured questions community members would describe the ecology;

name, medicinal uses, harvesting methods, parts used and conservation attitudes towards each of the NTFPs. The multiple uses of these high sourced plants justify the existence of some knowledge about their ecology. Again, this knowledge tends to vary with time and gender. The methods of harvest are sustainable in the sense that they involve; careful debarking, selective harvesting, picking, pruning and cutting (Table 13). Extraction

methods are species sensitive. Locals avoid cutting the; buds; shoots; the entire plant; the tap root; and other sensitive parts, with a knife to avoid damaging the entire plant. Seeds are picked, gathered or collected from the floor of the forest and on farms. Elders teach their children such self-control and consciousness in extraction methods especially as they attach so much importance to good health. Table 13 shows an array of health problems that have an indigenous remedy from five forest plants each of which contains curative elements for at least four different ailments. Local women prefer indigenous medicines for children especially wild plants used for treating spleen problems in children. For Esukutan women the importance of forest is also reflected in the life saving functions of these plants.

They undertake local actions to conserve these plants.

The local conservation practices constitute what is known as soft management because they are only partial and not intensive (Moegenburg and Levey, 2002:320). Propagation is location-bound and locals generally refer to farms around the settlement as “behind the house” or “at home”. Propagation inside the forest is here referred to as ‘in-situ’ and at home is known as ‘ex-situ’ because the thick forest is the original habitat for most wild forest plants. 62 randomly selected respondents and 32 focus group and key informant interviews reveal the local soft management practices in the communities. They are gendered and people’s attitudes towards species, do influence management activities. For instance, in these communities, there is a perception that njangsanga grows naturally, and so many people did not see the need to propagate it. However, a growing number of locals carry out in-situ propagation while the old who own farms around houses carry out ex-situ propagation. To this age group, propagating njangsanga wildings at home reduces trekking distance. In quantitative terms, there is a significant difference⁵⁹ in conservation attitudes between and within age groups. Certain factors account for this difference. First, parents are concerned with capital bequeath as some household heads propagate in the forest in preparation of their children’s future. Second, the middle-aged group still holds a long standing belief or myth over generations that planting a naturally growing NTFP shortens the planter’s lifespan. Such re-enforcing myths stoke fear in people but things are changing as Esukutan teenagers are propagating njangsanga wildings.

59A Pearson Chi-square test returned a significant value of 32.591 at 5% and with 15 degrees of freedom.

There are slight differences in the conservation attitudes towards bush mango. Although people propagate bush mango for posterity, many still build their attitudes around the belief or worldview that bush mango grows naturally (God given). Like njangsanga, bush mango is percieved to be a gift of God and that planting it by humans is sanctioned by a divine retribution. Since death is most feared by locals, they avoid attempting to plant bush mango because it shortens their lifespan. This assertion is justified with stories that people in the generations that have passed away tried to plant bush mango but died without enjoying the harvest. However, youths in both settlements are actively propagating bush mango wildings more than njangsanga because it fetches much money for them.

Extensive discussions also reveal the gendered conservation attitudes of bush mango and njangsanga. In Boserupian terminology, knowledge of these rural strategies is linked to gender roles. Men generally cut down trees that prevent sunlight from the desired plants, while women cut lianes, and transplant wildings. However, propagation efforts are partial since more than 50% of locals believe that these NTFPs should not be planted by man.

Locals do not conserve eru on a large scale because of its relative abundance in both primary and secondary forests and are unlikely to take steps to propagate it. Currently, Ikondo Kondo I households do take steps to spread Eru seeds on farms (See Box 3). This leads to the idea that when a resource is declining, the people take action to reverse its loss.

Locals source the seeds from inside the national park, which might raise issues of access and use rights, which is the case with non-mobile forest resources. No cases of tress pass were reported, but locals are aware that eru on individual farms belong to the owners except for those found in the thick forests. Generally, what is important to note here is finding that while many teenage Esukutan respondents are spreading eru seeds inside the forest, Ikondo Kondo I respondents who take such actions do so on farms around their homes. This resource that was formerly harvested on farms inside the park is now becoming a domestic crop. This creates conflict potentials based on who has access and use rights when this resource gets ready for harvest. The indigenous Chief of Esukutan explains that young women and children are much concerned about their future, which depends on the abundance of resources in many locations of the forest. This explains why these groups try to safeguard their future through propagating these livelihood resources today.

Box 4: Case of a local who spread eru seeds in the forest

A hunter’s wife accompanied him to the forest to help transport the game. She came to a spot that had an abundance of mature eru plants. She harvested the leaves including seeds and tied the latter in a bundle. On their way home, her load was too heavy and she decided to throw some of the eru seeds. The spot was accidentally visited 6 months latter by the same hunter who amazingly found that these seeds had all germinated. When asked why he went to that spot, the hunter said “I wanted to go close to where I had a good catch during my previous hunting expeditions”. This suggests that his visit was not to monitor the outcome of his wife’s unintended conservation efforts. The woman “conservator-by-chance”, harvested the eru seeds because she wanted to show her curious children how eru seeds look like. She also added that thanks to her efforts, people will not walk long distances into the forest to harvest eru again. As already explained in Chapter 3, local land tenure systems require that resources along forest paths belong to all community members, and so no one has exclusive rights over such mobile resources.

In Ikondo Kondo I, hunters disclose that eru seeds might have stuck to their clothes or bags and fell off as they went along. Also, the elders strongly argue that conservation is out of question and it is not a priority for them: “do not expect us to plant eru when we had it free of charge in our old village, and besides the government displaced us from our forest in order to provide for us in this new site”. Such conservation opportunism is probably echoed because they have been relocated to an area that is not rich in such important NTFPs.

Bitter cola has a widespread use as local medicine but its propagation is skewed in favour of males as explained in Chapter 4. Rodents are helping to spread bitter cola fruits and their remote locations in the forest provide little incentives for indigenes to propagate it.

Alligator pepper is collected in its original habitat in the dense forest. It is share luck to find it and locals tend to think one needs special blessings from the ancestors to be able to find alligator pepper in his farm. Alligator pepper is scarce but widely use in these villages.