- Since it was made law in 2001, the Gabonese Forest Code has required companies to share the revenues from timber harvesting with the local communities in which they are operating. But the Forest Code itself did not specify how exactly that should happen in practice.
- An implementing decree published 13 years later proposed a benefit sharing agreement template, but the two texts still did not provide enough detail to make benefit sharing actually become a reality.
- Then, in 2014, the Ministry of Forests requested a guidance document for the implementing decree. Multiple stakeholders from local forest communities responded with the Technical Guide on Benefit Sharing, developed with input from a legal working group supported by ClientEarth, a legal non-profit based in London.
Central African country Gabon has formally adopted a new guidance document produced by local communities and civil society groups that aims to help forest communities receive a share of profits from commercial timber harvesting.
Since it was made law in 2001, the Gabonese Forest Code has required companies to share the revenues from timber harvesting with the local communities in which they are operating. But the Forest Code itself did not specify how exactly that should happen in practice.
An implementing decree published 13 years later proposed a benefit sharing agreement template, but the two texts still did not provide enough detail to make benefit sharing actually become a reality.
Then, in 2014, the Ministry of Forests requested a guidance document for the implementing decree. Multiple stakeholders from local forest communities responded with the Technical Guide on Benefit Sharing, developed with input from a legal working group supported by ClientEarth, a legal non-profit based in London.
The Technical Guide, which was approved by the Gabonese government on May 3, provides step-by-step instructions on how benefit-sharing agreements should be designed and implemented in compliance with the law that has been in place for 15 years.
A field test was carried out last summer to evaluate the usefulness of the Technical Guide and to find ways to improve it. The field test led to the first two benefit sharing agreements being signed last September by local communities in the heavily forested Ogooué-Ivindo province in northeastern Gabon.
The country’s Minister for Forests, Flore Joséphine Mistoul Yame, praised the Technical Guide and said the Ministry will be publishing a preface to accompany the document in the coming weeks, according to a statement issued by ClientEarth.
“The fact that the Ministry of Forests officially endorses the Technical Guide is very encouraging,” Benjamin Ichou, legal researcher at ClientEarth, said in the statement. “The Ministry’s endorsement shows once again that civil society organisations can provide strong and meaningful contributions to forest governance processes.”
Together, the Forest Code, the implementing decree, and the Technical Guide will allow local communities to share in revenues generated from timber harvesting by setting up a development fund. “The Guide aims to ensure that local communities meaningfully participate in the development and signing of such agreements, and that they have a say in the creation of local development projects financed by the development fund,” according to ClientEarth’s statement.
Though this is a major step forward for civil society in terms of forest governance and benefit sharing, Grace Ollomo, ClientEarth’s in-country associate in Gabon, said that there is still a long way to go, because this is an entirely new process.
“Capacity-building and follow-up with stakeholders is essential for it to be effective in the whole country. Making sure that people can take ownership of the mechanism is what will make this law work in practice.”