Traditional Management

Archaeological evidence indicates that the Congo Basin has supported continuous human settlement for at least 40,000 years.  In the course of this broad expanse of time, different systems of land management emerged in different parts of the region.

In some places, particularly around newly-created settlements, rights of access to the surrounding forest could be very open and flexible.  Yet in many areas, population density and other factors were sufficient to lead to the emergence of clearly-defined, formal systems of land tenure.  As Karsenty et al note: "In some cases, lineages have a strong authority on the forest territory they claim, access is well codified and boundaries are precisely known" (2010:2).  And as Hewlett states for the southwestern Central African Republic, "Every local villager or forager knows the limits of different patrilineal territories.  The limits are distinguished by small streams or particularly large trees and/or a particular species of tree" (1996b:3-4). At the same time, forest territories could vary both in size and the social groups they belonged to: in some cases, the clans that made up a village each had their own territory; in others, the territory belonged to the entire village; and, in still others, large territories would be shared by several villages.

Despite such variation, however, there were certain basic principles underlying customary management systems that have been found throughout the Congo Basin:

• Traditional land-use is for subsistence only.

• Access to a particular forest territory is limited to the local community, their relatives and visitors, and those who have been given their permission.

• Even though certain sites within a community's territory can belong to individuals or families -- garden plots, fishing holes, caterpillar trees, etc --  no individual has the right to alienate any collective land for his/her own purposes (sale, commercial exploitation, etc).  The customary territory is "held" by a particular community, or group of communities, and is passed on to their descendants to sustain their livelihoods.  In this way, each forest territory is very much a "commons" and the community with rights to it acts as "trustee" of a collective patrimony that is passed down through the generations.

• The actual "ownership" of the territory lies in the spiritual realm, as spirits are considered to act as "guardians" of the land, maintaining its fertility and providing the living with access to it.  In this regard, one finds variation across the region in terms of the type of spirits considered to play this role: for some, it is the spirits of their ancestors; for others, it is local land spirits; and, for still others, it is the spiritual being that created the forest.  In addition, in some places there are specialized "land chiefs" (chefs de terre) who act as mediators between the world of the land spirits and that of the living, being responsible for maintaining the land's fertility.  In other places, these functions are carried out by traditional village chiefs, while elsewhere they are shared by all community members.

• Rights to land are transmitted by birth (each individual enjoying access to the territories of his/her mother and father), through marriage (each individual acquiring access to those of his/her spouse's mother and father), and by being passed on as a "gift" to friends or partners in alliance relationships.

• Knowledge of the territory -- its boundaries, resources and lore -- is transmitted to youth by their elders in the course of daily subsistence activities carried out within it.  That the details of local tenure arrangements are common knowledge is illustrated by the fact that a standard procedure for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in mapping customary territories is to "validate" the map of a particular community by gathering its members together with those of neighboring communities to verify the details on the map.  Although this sometimes results in modifications to some of its features, in the large majority of cases neighbors are able to agree on who has access to what spaces.  

One important difference between customary geographies and those familiar to Westerners lies in how spaces are defined.  According to modern conceptions, geographic space is partitioned into what could be called "containers:" spatial units with clearly-defined boundaries that surround internal "contents," such as modern nation-states, parcels of real estate, etc.  However, rights to customary territories are usually considered to radiate from a central path and land-use at the edges of the territory can either be clearly-defined, according to conventional boundaries, or flexible and shared with neighbors (especially when adjacent communities get along well with one another).

An important focus of customary management is the maintenance of a state of social harmony -- both between the living and the spirit guardians of their forest territory and among the members of the community themselves.  Yet the regime of customary management also includes various types of traditional "conservation" practices, which vary from region to region.  In some traditions, every fourth day is a "holiday," in which the forest is allowed to "rest" and the spirits are allowed to carry out their own activities.  More generally, zones inhabited by spirits, or that are otherwise "sacred," are off limits to human activity.  Furthermore, there are various prohibitions against hunting particular animal species and cutting particular species of tree as well as seasonal prohibitions in which hunting game during gestation periods is forbidden, carrying out fishing activities during spawning season is forbidden, and so on.

Although the Congo Basin rainforest is represented as a vast, uninhabited expanse of green on most maps, such graphic conventions mask a fundamental human reality.  Not only is the region home to upwards of forty million people, the rainforest itself comprises a vast network of collectively-held "commons" -- spaces which local communities depend on for their daily subsistence, which are managed according to long-established customary practices, and rights to which are passed down from generation to generation.