'We are Scared to Say No': Facing Foreign Timber Companies in Sierra Leone's Community Woodlands

摘要

In recent years, 'decentralisation' has become an increasingly prominent theme in Sub-Saharan African development theory and practice, particularly around woodland management. Although much research has illuminated challenges arising in project designand implementation, 'external' threats to decentralised resource management initiatives have received little attention. At the same time, however, there has been a massive increase in foreign, particularly Chinese, corporate investment in the extractionof African resources. This paper examines the importance of the interaction between these two trends to local livelihoods and resource management through a case study of illegal logging by Chinese companies in Sierra Leone.