Local communities' perception of parks and reserves in Cote d'Ivoire: Do the Wanne people consider the Monogaga Classified Forest as a natural patrimony

The Parks, Reserves and Classified Forests in Côte d'Ivoire are considered asto-be-conserved national natural patrimony. Their management seldominvolves the local communities who live around or inside them. Farmingpractices exert a continuously high pressure on forest cover. In the case ofMonogaga, local people (the Wanne) were allowed to stay in the forest after ithad been declared classified. After a period of conflict between the Wanneand SODEFOR, the forest management authority, SODEFOR sought tounderstand why the Wanne people do not consider the entire forest as apatrimony to conserve and transfer to their children. The present studyaddresses this question. Local communities recognized several spatial units inthe Monogaga Forest. The chiefs of lineage control and guarantee access tothose units. In the subdivision of SODEFOR, each zone corresponds to aprecise designation: one for agriculture and another one for conservation. ForSODEFOR, the forest ecosystems constitute a national patrimony to conservewhile taking into accounts land rights and access to resources. For farmers,land that is inalienable and some of its resources (raphia swamp, kporo)constitute a patrimony of the lineage. In the latter case, the use of land andresources obey complexes access rules. Those traditional access rules to landand resources are still in use in Monogaga.