Nigeria: Conservation, 'Traditional' Knowledge & the Commons

Author(s): Caroline Ifeka and Sylvanus Abua

Source: Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 32, No. 104/105, Oiling the Wheels of
Imperialism (Jun. - Sep., 2005), pp. 436-443
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4007088
Accessed: 05-01-2018 08:05 UTC

REFERENCES
Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4007088?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents
You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Review of African Political Economy

This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
436 Review of African Political Economy
public and press lack information. So
corruption has vast space in which to
develop. The problem is not lack of laws,
but that the laws are not applied. The
lack of political will to call high officials
to account for conflicts of interest, com-
bined with the decline in moral values
and the get-rich-quick attitudes of the
new capitalist society, means that a
small political elite continues to expro-
priate public goods for their own benefit.
During the period before and during the
election, there was much talk of petty
corruption, and this has continued since
Guebuza took office. But an anti-corrup-
tion strategy starts at the top. Thus the
absence of rules to regulate the behav-
iour of a businessman-president raises
major questions, and strips away any
means from the anti-corruption discourse
peddled by the politicians. Will Guebuza
show how he manages his interests,
especially in fishing, and will he give
practical content to rules on integrity
and conflict of interest? What will he do
about concessional Treasury credits.
Will the businessman-president be able
and willing to break with neo-
patrimonialism and move toward the
modern state? Or has integrity been left
behind with authoritarianism?
Marcelo Mosse is a Mozambican inde-
pendent journalist, social researcher and
anti-corruption activist. He is involved
in the creation of a Centre for Public
Integrity in Mozambique and is the co-
author of Telling the Truth in Mozambique,
a biography of the assassinated editor
Carlos Cardoso. This briefing is an ed-
ited version of an article first published
in Savana (19 November 2004) which
won the Carlos Cardoso Award for
Investigative Journalism on 3 May 2005.
This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Nigeria: Conservation,
'Traditional' Knowledge &
the Commons
Caroline Ifeka & Sylvanus Abua
As analysed in former issues of ROAPE,
rural Africa's resource struggles pivot on
the capitalist economy's growing trans-
formation of common property tenure
into private property regimes that sup-
port the development of class relations
and socio-economic inequality. Privati-
sation by elites in control of emerging
land markets means the direct producer
looses his customary entitlements and,
landless, is forced to seek employment
for a wage within capitalist relations of
production: privatisation shrinks the
commons and undermines both 'tradi-
tional' environmental knowledge and
community forest management. How-
ever, our data show that compared to
settlements close to roads and markets,
villages furthest from the roads retain
greater commitment to common tenure,
have stronger traditional knowledge and
greater resistance to privatisation of the
forests. We ask whether in the latter
settlements 'traditional' knowledge helps
empower subalterns and some (sensi-
tised) elites to resist the commodification
of forest resources and to uphold com-
munity forest management for bio diver-
sity conservation.
In this briefing we recall Gareth Hardin's
(1968) classic argument that though so-
ciety is composed of rational individuals
attempting to maximise their own eco-
nomic interests, this rationality is indi-
vidualistic and exercised at the expense
of other individuals - and the commons
which they exploit. Previous ROAPE
contributors have argued that an historic
struggle for ownership and control for
profit and power of resources in sub-
continental Africa continues (c.f. Cliffe,
1988; Bush & Szeftel, 1991; Johnson,
2003). Currently, members of an interna-
 Briefings: Nigeria: Conservation, 'Traditional' Knowledge & the Commons 437
tional and African bourgeoisie compris-
ing multinational corporation manag-
ers, officials of the nation-state, and
national companies are pushing privati-
sation for profit of African lands, forests,
inland rivers and coastal waters. Their
predatory actions are resisted from time
to time by an increasingly differentiated
subaltern class of direct producers (min-
ers, farmers, fisherfolk, hunter-gatherers,
pastoralists) whose livelihoods - nay
survival - depend on continuing access
under customary tenure to a commons
that in villages relatively close to access
roads logging companies, farmers and
traffickers in non-timber forest products
are 'mining' to death.
Alarmed at rapid species and habitat
loss, international NGOs such as the
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) UK
collaborated in the late 1980s with the
Federal Military Government of Nigeria
to enclose large tracts of forest commons
for perpetual protection - i.e. zero exploi-
tation. These lands were gazetted as
National Parks, which prohibited local
people from exercising their customary
tenurial rights to hunt, farm and harvest
products in the forest as their ancestors
had done for generations. In effect, the
Federal Government's Parks were a state-
administered 'commons' superimposed
over customary lands, but one that can-
celled villagers' 'traditional' rights of
access, exploitation and management;
perhaps conservationists hoped that
these state 'commons' would provide a
bulwark against market forces pushing
for the privatisation of customary land
rights?
Yet tropical forest degradation by illegal
loggers in cahoots with community, state
and federal elites extends to forests offi-
cially protected as National Parks. State
elites feel free to send in their tractors and
chain saw operators to fell and transport
out valuable tropical hardwood for sale
to eager buyers in Calabar (the capital of
Cross River State) and Lagos. In
addidtion, farmers and pastoralists ef-
This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
fect annual burning of forests well inside
Park boundaries for farming and graz-
ing. Continuing destruction of high for-
est, river courses and endemic species
habitats caused many conservationists
and the DFID-supported Cross River
State Community Forestry Project in the
1990s to question the effectiveness of
Parks as the primary tool for biodiversity
maintenance; they argued that effective
conservation begins (and ends) with full
community participation. However, de-
velopment practitioners and national
elites keen to promote tenure privatisa-
tion have criticised Nigeria's Land Use
Decree (1978) which placed all land
under the 'trusteeship' of state gover-
nors; in their view, the Decree is 'holding
back' urban and rural 'development', by
which they mean clearance of commu-
nity and family held land for urban
projects and agro-industrial plantations
producing cash crops as rubber, palm oil
and sugar cane which they claim (sur-
prisingly) can 'feed the nation'. Now
bourgeois advocates of privatisation are
pressing for the 1978 decree to be abol-
ished, so an open market in land will be
established everywhere; they believe all
the country's lands presently exploited
by rural communities as a commons
under customary tenure should be 'freed
up' (commodified) so they can be pur-
chased for a 'market' price by those with
the wherewithal to invest in 'develop-
ment' which will 'grow the economy'.
Note that early in 2005, notwithstanding
local concerns and some opposition, the
Kwara state governor in central Nigeria
'leased' 16,000 hectares for 25 years of
allegedly 'empty' common land to four
Zimbabwean (white) farmers supported
by 50 black Zimbabwean farm hands
and 2,000 head of cattle, with which to
establish large-scale dairy farming inte-
grated with soybean, maize and rice
cultivation (UNIRI, 22 March 2005).
Although Gareth Hardin argues that in
situations of population growth every
'man's' ('natural') maximisation of self-
interest ensured that land held in com-
438 Review of African Political Economy
mon is degraded, we examine some
instances to the contrary of successful
forest commons management in the best
'bottom up' tradition of sustainable ex-
ploitation that benefits collectivity. These
communities are furthest from roads and
markets, have very small village elites
without strong ties to state politicians as
well as rich forest resources that are
reflected in a vibrant environmental
knowledge; some villages have partner-
ships with local NGOs such as the
African Research Association and Rain-
forest Resource and Documentation Cen-
tre which work across Cross River State
for preserving 'traditional' knowledge
and more sustainable exploitation of the
forest commons. Do these village com-
munities epitomise Andre Gunder
Frank's ('dependency') theory (1969) that
the looser the economic ties between
'periphery' (settlement) and 'metropole'
(market town, state capital), the greater
the satellite's prospects - assuming a
redistributive oriented government - for
more sustainable forest commons man-
agement that relies on 'traditional' envi-
ronmental knowledge, reduces income
inequality and resource conflict?
In what follows we explore the role of
'traditional' knowledge in empowering
successful community management of
the forest commons. (By 'traditional'
knowledge we mean that body of local
wisdom, learning and understanding
that interprets communities' collective
relations with, and impact on, their
forests in terms of customary law regu-
lating spiritual relations between people
and vitalising divinities.)
Cultural Modification
Our enquiries suggest that traditional
knowledge in remote forest villages of
forest plants and habitats continues to
adapt to new challenges, notably a
shrinking natural resource base that is
increasingly penetrated by the cash
economy. For instance, local entrepre-
neurs - perhaps working for city based
This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
elites - hire village labour, largely women,
on piece rates so workers in each gang
compete to harvest more 'salad' (Gnetum
africana) per day than others; villagers
fear that ever more intensive harvesting
is wiping out the plant. Commodification
of labour and the commons is impinging
on knowledge and conservation prac-
tices. Consider the following examples of
cultural modification:
Ten years ago a men's secret society
(Ekpe) masquerades in villages and
towns in Cross River State (Nigeria)
danced to the sound of drum beating
played by youth. Today's secret soci-
ety players rely on pop and jazz music
blaring from radios. The radio is a
foreign, modern technology that youth
value because it puts them in touch
with the outside world of innovation
and modernity that they believe makes
their village lifestyles seem backward
and old-fashioned. Though radio
sends 'hip' messages, currently it is
modifying rather than destroying in-
stitutions that uphold the secret soci-
ety as a respected, if not feared
apparatus of law and order which is
backed by sacred sanctions and sup-
ports sustainable exploitation, e.g. re-
stricting access, opening and closing
seasons, imposing taxes on outside
users.
In tropical high forest villages on the
Nigeria-Cameroon border, remote from
access roads and markets but depend-
ent for cash income on exploitation of
non-timber forest products as bush
mango (Irvingia gabonensis), men's se-
cret society members (Lakumbo) are
still initiated into the secret knowl-
edge of plants, forests and gods that
constitute the 'traditional' sacred
power of the ancestors over the living.
Here, old men and some youth ex-
pressed concern that conversion of
some community members (generally
women) to Pentecostal churches and
economic 'development' are
trivialising a secret society, whose
 Briefings: Nigeria: Conservation, 'Traditional' Knowledge & the Commons 439
inner circle is feared for its spiritual
powers of life and death, and still
largely responsible for 'law and order'
across the thickly forested villages of
this cross-border region.
Some herbalists known to us in a
small north Cross River town (Obudu)
are 'modernising' their practices. They
refer to books compiled by overseas
plant scientists as they collaborate
with local laboratory analysts, who
now carry out diagnoses for patients
before administering herbal (plant)
medicines in measured doses. We
note that this is an example of quanti-
fication according to rational princi-
ples that are commodifying traditional
knowledge. This is also an example of
how researchers and scientists take
out the less measurable, more qualita-
tive elements of traditional knowledge
and replace them with quantifiable
procedures that enable the practitioner
to sell his knowledge in discrete blocks
to patients who believe that 'scientific'
herbal medicine is more likely to lead
to a cure. So traditional knowledge of
forest plants used in healing many
afflictions is commodified, sold freely
on the market for a price, while the
original (customary) owners of the
knowledge receive little or no benefit.
Scientific 'Rationalism' vs.
Spiritual Knowledge
The political process of 'scientisation',
which involves assessment, selection,
substantiation and approval according
to western scientific benchmarks, raises
western science to the dominant level of
reference as the measure of what counts
as 'real' (e.g. scientific) knowledge. Once
accepted by scientists, what was once
'traditional' tends to be subsumed in the
western knowledge base and is per-
ceived by indigenes as transferring own-
ership to those with scientific knowledge.
Multinational companies interested in
prospecting for new plant resources and
This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
genetic material, sometimes commission
ethno-botanical research into plant medi-
cine. In cases known to us, on both sides
of the Nigeria-Cameroon border, conser-
vation agency scientists and pharma-
ceutical companies seek to exploit for
corporate gain knowledge that indig-
enous peoples, mostly herbalists, have
built up over many generations.
In general, multinational companies have
little or no interest in the geographical
areas from which their laboratory speci-
mens have come, or in the owners of the
knowledge who saved them (companies)
several years of expensive hit-and-miss
research. The unprivileged position that
'traditional' knowledge occupies is one
reason why the intellectual property
rights of indigenous peoples are often
treated so lightly (c.f. Posey, 1990).
A technical materially oriented approach
to conservation is in line with quantifi-
able (scientific) measurement of 'the so-
cial good' in terms of increasing
production of commodities (e.g. goods
sold in exchange for money). Thus, 'sci-
entific' (rational, logical) techniques
measure community progress towards
conservation goals in quantifiable, meas-
urable indicators of bio-diversity en-
hancement, by for example, counting
annually the number of big mammals in
a designated forest block or by weighing
the tonnage of 'salad' (Gnetum africana)
and bush mango (Irvingia gabonensis)
harvested annually in community for-
ests (c.f. WWF, 1990; Omoluabi, 1994;
BothENDS, 2004).
Perceived Corrosion of
'Traditional' Knowledge
Based on our analyses, though the indig-
enous perception that nature and hu-
man beings are inseparable is weakening
in remote forest villages, the belief that
plants and human fortunes are inte-
grated through the pervasive activities of
various spiritual powers is still potent.
For example:
440 Review of African Political Economy
Anyang classify plants into 'male'
and 'female', 'black' and 'white' (said
by informants to be similar to black
and white races) by the following
criteria: plant structure, leaf colour -
pale green is classified as white while
dark green is classified as black - and
pilosity (leaf hairiness). Anyang clas-
sification further confirms that some
indigenous peoples perceive humans
and nature as similar in some respects
and as being linked through the mak-
ing of analogies as the above which
inform plant categorisation. Plants
with hairy leaves or high (traditional)
medicinal potency are seen as males,
while those with non-hairy leaves of
less medicinal potency are seen as
females. Flowering plants (cryptogams)
and non-flowering plants (phenogams)
are seen as males and females respec-
tively, though flower-bearing plants
are classified as male-female while
sterile plants are male.
Some herbalists in the Anyang com-
munity of Okwa (enclaved in the
Cross River National Park) told us
that verbal communication with plants
is possible. This is said to explain why
some people believe in a secret agree-
ment with forest trees that they will
not harm any member of the commu-
nity, as told to us by herbalists in
another Anyang village in the
Takamanda Forest Reserve
(Cameroon).
Unfortunately, conservation agencies all
too often evince a limited appreciation of
'traditional' environmental knowledge
and conservation practices, so this local
understanding is not incorporated into
programme design. This is one reason
why 'top down' programmes often fail to
strengthen community capacity to man-
age the forest commons more sustainably.
For example:
On several occasions when the Cross
River National Park attempted to imple-
ment its village resettlement scheme as
This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
part of government's conservation pro-
gramme (1991-99), the enclaved villagers
of Okwa resisted strongly, arguing that
they could not abandon their spiritual
birthplaces protected by sacred animals
(crocodiles, pythons, hippopotami), for-
est sites where ancestors resurrect in
animal forms and may haunt ancestral
graves. Okwa people asked representa-
tives of the World Wide Fund for Nature,
then managing that section of the Park,
the following (paraphrased) questions:
What will happen to our spirits that are in
forest elephants, hippos, crocodiles, etc?
How about our ancestors who we have to
interact with and respect through liba-
tions, and whose graves lie in sacred
ground in theforest?
The WWF manager (an expatriate) an-
swered that he would arrange for Okwa's
'totems' (e.g. elephants etc) to be winched
up into a helicopter and flown out to
their new location. Youth remained
skeptical as to WWF's 'real' intentions.
Knowledge, Tenure & Managing
the Commons
Thus, communities in our study area
evinced a fragile political and cultural
balance between 'modern' (materialist),
privatising and 'traditional' collectivist
(spiritual) orientations towards the for-
est commons, reflecting historical inter-
action between on the one hand,
pre-market subsistence-based economies
in which community survival is empha-
sised as the basis of individual life, and
on the other hand, market forces which
highlight individual choice, labour for
cash not subsistence, and personal con-
sumption. These conflicting value sys-
tems highlight the development of
cultural heterogeneity and economic dif-
ferentiation in remote forest villages,
precursors perhaps of the preponder-
ance of privatised tenure regimes and a
shrinking forest commons in villages
close to access roads and markets.
Tacit acceptance of private property re-
gimes among some households in re-
mote villages is evident in a popular
preoccupation with economic develop-
ment; for example, successful hunters,
struggling small holder farmers and
some non-timber forest product harvest-
ers seek to strengthen market access for
bush meat, 'salad', 'wild honey' and the
like. Petty capitalism and materialistic
perceptions of the forest as an obstacle to
economic development (on account of
lack of roads, electricity and health cen-
tres) are growing among a minority of
(elite) households whose members en-
gage significantly more in farming and
off-farm activities as trading between
village and city than in non-timber forest
product exploitation (Ifeka, 1998; Abua,
2002; Development in Nigeria (DIN),
2003). These elites also claimed that land
cleared for cocoa farms was their indi-
vidual property (they therefore saw them-
selves as converting commons into
private property), and they were mark-
edly less interested than the poor major-
ity in community customary rights to
forest and sustainable use of medicinal
plants ( c.f. Okoth-Owiro, 1996; Francis,
1996).
However, the poorest 60% of households
(20% were female headed in some vil-
lages) valued most conservation of non-
timber forest products on which they
depended for their annual income (DIN,
2003). Traditional knowledge of forest
plants, their multi-dimensional mean-
ings and uses, is strongest among the
poor majority including female headed
households; transmission of such knowl-
edge from one generation to the next, its
use in day to day survival by exploiting
non-timber forest products for subsist-
ence and sale, reflects poor households'
very real dependence on the forest for
survival (c.f. Ambrose, 1994). The poor
majority, especially women, are among
the strongest 'natural allies' of conserva-
tionists (Redford, 1993), and should be
targeted by NGO networks and donors
as primary beneficiaries of pro-poor con-
This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
servation, development and advocacy
programmes so as to achieve more rapid
scaling up of positive impacts that could
reduce biodiversity destruction across
large forest and forest-edge blocks.
Evidence from our field studies and
elsewhere in Cross River state as Ekuri in
the south-west, demonstrates remote
communities' capacity for long term
community forest management (Draper,
2004; Caldecott, 1996). Recently, the Ekuri
people resisted a timber company offer-
ing them a road as bait for large-scale
timber exploitation. Again, in 2004, a
local advocacy NGO (Rainforest Re-
source and Documentation Centre,
Calabar) mobilised community youth
and launched a successful campaign
that 'persuaded' the state government to
call in the hammers thus stopping all
logging. This was to allow the Forestry
Commission to establish sustainable log-
ging benchmarks.
Conclusion
Our data show a marked contrast in
community capacity for, and commit-
ment to, sustainable forest commons
management in two types of villages.
First, in villages closest to roads and
markets, where socio-economic inequal-
ity and reliance on remittances like log-
ging and conversion of the forest into
farms is most marked, traditional en-
vironmental knowledge is fragmented,
and community capacity for effective
commons management is weakest. Sec-
ond, in villages furthest from access
roads where inequality and remittance
dependence is less, reliance on forest
resources is greater, traditional knowl-
edge is more pervasive and village au-
thorities managing the commons may
resist capitalist interests as multina-
tional logging, pharmaceutical compa-
nies and agro-industrial corporations
clearing forest for large scale mono-
culture plantations (e.g. oil palm). How-
ever, the general trend is rising levels of
intra- and inter-village conflict, small
442 Review of African Political Economy
'resource wars' and tropical forest deg-
radation. Differences between villages in
degree of dependence on forest resources
as well as adherence to traditional knowl-
edge and perceptions of conservation
conform to patterns noted in early 1990s
field research reports by the Department
for International Development's (DFID,
UK) Community Forestry Project, Cross
River State (Alexander, 1994).
Though some pro-conservations believe
in the state enclosing the forest commons
for the latter's 'protection', others argue
that Hardin-style degradation 'proves'
that there can be no successful manage-
ment of lands held in common. However,
we gave some examples of sustainable
exploitation of forests by villages remote
from roads. Like Shepherd (1988) we
conclude that the real tragedy of the
commons comes when the penetration of
market forces and growing individual
greed privatises customary tenure re-
gimes, and undermines community man-
agement capacity so unrestricted
exploitation holds sway.
Caroline Ifeka (University College Lon-
don) and Sylvanus Abua (African Re-
search Association, Nigeria).
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to
the Leverhulme Trust (UK) for a research
fellowship which inter alia enabled
Sylvanus Abua to take leave from his job
as Director of the African Research Asso-
ciation's Research, Documentation and
Policy Unit in Calabar, Nigeria, and
travel to the UK so he and Caroline Ifeka
could carry out joint ethno-botanical
archival research. Abua presented an
earlier version of this paper under the
title 'The Impact of Research and Conser-
vation Programmes on Traditional
Knowledge of Forest Plants: A Compara-
tive Approach' to the 9th International
Congress of Ethno-Biology, University of
Kent, 13-17 June 2004.
This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Bibliographic Note
Abua, S., C. Ifeka & V. Kuma (2002). 'Ethno-
Botanical Survey of Obonyi Three, Takamanda
Forest Reserve (Cameroon)', African Research
Association/Development in Nigeria, Calabar,
Nigeria.
Alexander, D. & 0. Effa (1994), 'The Preliminary
Non-Timber Forest Products Survey Report',
Cross River State Forestry Project (ODA
Assisted), Calabar, Nigeria.
Ambrose, B. (1994), 'Using Indigenous
Knowledge in Participatory Approaches to
Natural Forest Management and Conservation
with Case Studies from Cameroon', Oxford:
Wolfson College.
BothENDS (2004), 'Differences in Non-Timber
Forest Products Management Between Africa
and Asia: The Case of Eru', Encylopaedia of
Sustainability, Amsterdam: BothEnds.
Bush, R. & M. Szeftel (1991), 'The Struggle for
Resources', Review of African Political Economy,
Vol. 19, No. 51: 308.
Caldecott, J. & A. B. Morakinyo (1996),
'Nigeria', in A. Lutz & J. Caldecott (eds.),
'Decentralisation and Biodiversity Conservation',
A World Bank Symposium, Washington: IBRD.
Cliffe, L. (1988), 'The Conservation Issue in
Zimbabwe', Review of African Political Economy,
Vol. 15, No. 42: 48-58.
Development in Nigeria (DIN) (2003), Report
to IUCN on Indigenous Uses of Non- Timber
Forest Products. Bateriko, Cross River State,
Nigeria.
Draper et al. (2004), 'Socio-economic con-
siderations in the conservation of the Stubbs
Creek Forest Reserve (Nigeria)', Commissioned
paper on behalf of African Research Association/
Development in Nigeria presented to CER-
COPAN, Calabar, Nigeria.
Francis, P. (1996), 'State, Community and Local
Development in Nigeria', World Bank Technical
Paper No. 336, Washington, DC.
Frank, A.G. (1969), Capitalism and Under-
Development in Latin America, New York: Monthly
Review Press.
Hardin, G. (1968), 'The Tragedy of the
Commons', Science 62: 1243-1248.
Ifeka, C. & S. Abua (1998), 'Indigenous
Communities and Forest Resources', Draft
Report to ESCOR, London: ODA.
Johnson, C. (2003), 'Nigeria: Illegal Logging &
Forest Women's Resistance', Review of African
Political Economy, Vol. 30. No 95: 156-162.
 Briefings: Tajudeen's Thursday Postcard 443
Okoth-Owiro, A. (1996), 'Property Rights,
Medicinal Plants and Indigenous Knowledge' in
C. Juma & J. B. Ojwang (eds.), In Land We Trust.
Environment, Private Property and Constitutional
Change, London: Zed Books; Nairobi: Initiative
Publishers.
Omoluabi, A.C. (1994), 'Trade in Timber and
Non-Timber Forest Products in Cross River State
of Nigeria', a report prepared for the Cross River
State Forestry Project (ODA Assisted) Forestry
Department Headquarters, Calabar.
Posey, Darrell Addison (1990), 'Intellectual
Property Rights and Just Compensation for
Indigenous Knowledge: Challenges to Science,
Business and International Law', paper
presented to the Association for Applied
Anthropology, York.
Redford, K.H. & A.M. Stearman (1993), 'Forest
dwelling native Amazonians and the con-
servation of biodiversity', Conservation Biology 7:
248-255.
Shepherd, G. (1988), 'The Reality of the
Commons: Answering Hardin from Somalia',
ODI Social Forestry Network, 1988, London.
UN Integrated Regional Information Net-
works (UNIRI) (2005), 'Nigeria: Zimbabwean
Farmers Move on to New Pastures North of the
Equator', Allafrica.com 22 March.
World Wide Fund for Nature (1990), 'Cross
River National Park (Okwangwo Division) plan
for Developing the Park and its Support Zone',
Godalming: Panda House.
Tajudeen's Thursday
Postcard
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
The British Prime Minister's Commis-
sion for Africa Report was published
amidst fanfare, even bluster and brave
talks about 'new beginnings' and 'great
windows of opportunity.' It never ceases
to amaze me why we are supposed to
settle for windows when we have a
whole continent full of gates, fields and
mountains of opportunities! The reac-
tion has generally been mixed whether
in Africa or globally including Britain
This content downloaded from 213.55.76.173 on Fri, 05 Jan 2018 08:05:56 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
itself. This is largely because Africa and
her momentous challenges has never
lacked focus but has always been short-
changed, if not surcharged when it comes
to concrete action to realise the often
declared good intentions - either de-
clared by ourselves or by others to us.
As someone who has been critical of the
Commission as an unnecessary project -
a waste of time / energy / money that
could have been put to better use and a
diversion from what Africans are doing
and want to do for themselves, there is
not much in the report to make me lose
my scepticism. It has actually triggered
more questions.
In its Description and Analysis of the
Problems it has nothing new to say and
modestly makes no pretence at doing so.
It is a good summary of what we already
know. Perhaps it is in some of its recom-
mendations that nuanced tactical, if not
strategic, shifts can be discerned. I say
tactical because both the analysis and
the suggested solutions are essentially
still within the same neo-liberal market-
only ideological hegemony of these times.
It is still seeking to adjust Africa to global
forces despite timid recognition in sec-
tions of the report that trade liberalisa-
tion, privatisation and donor-driven
market mantra have hugely contributed
to the collapse of infrastructure, societies
and great deprivation in Africa. Just like
we had dubious notions of 'adjustment
with a human face' to offer palliatives for
the atrocities inflicted on victims of IMF/
World Bank SAP policies in the 1980s,
the Blair Commission may turn out to be
offering us 'globalisation with some hu-
man faces'.
But even here there are doubts as to the
concrete action that will follow the 100 or
so recommendations. I don't think any-
body believes that all the recommenda-
tions will be acted upon but a number of
key ones will remain the focus of action.
They include an increase in Aid, Debt
Cancellation, Trade Distortions that pre-