Solidarity cooperative of non-timber forest products

Indigenous peoples live primarily from hunting, fishing and gathering. These activities provide them with meager income, because they remain subsistence activities not important enough to drive real development. Although the latter are upstream of the sale of NTFPs, they make meager profits from it. Indigenous peoples collect NTFPs from the forest and sell them at a lower cost to the Bantu who impose a purchase price on them.

Faced with this alarming situation, we are convinced that by organizing indigenous peoples around a cooperative, we could better market their collection. Indeed, organizing the collection, sale and labeling of NTFPs could create jobs and significant income for them.

The Messok District has 14 camps with approximately more than 1,700 Baka, of whom more than 50% are women. This population could be better organized if it is grouped around a cooperative.                 

The Solidarity Cooperative Project for Non-Wood Forest Products aims to:

Increase the income of 14 Baka (camps) communities

Specifically it is:

•   Organize a vast information and awareness campaign on the collection and group sale of NTFPs;
•   Build storage infrastructure;
•   Acquire transport collection equipment;
•   Organize the collection and storage of NTFPs;
•   Marketing of NTFPs;

Area of intervention: District of Messok

Budget : 65 000 Euro