Paper short abstract:

The paper analyzes the effects of the legal fragmentation on the local forest governance institutional. It criticizes the confrontation of different layers of interests and practice; being mobilized as separate legal domains within a single government.

Paper long abstract:

In Senegal, many types of law shape the decentralization of forest management, especially forests within the jurisdiction of rural local government, the Rural Communities (RCs). The National Domain Law of 1964 considers these forests to be part of the "zones de terroir" (an entity of the national domain under government management), the 1996 Decentralization Code while still recognizing forests as part of the state domain, transfers their management to the rural deliberative bodies of RCs. The Forestry Code of 1998, which draws on the work of the National Forest Service (NFS) recognize the signature of the President rural Council rather than the deliberation of the deliberative Rural Council as imposed by 1996 Decentralization Code. It also introduces the Forest Management Plan as conditionality for transferring the management power from the State to rural local government. This coexistence of laws and regulations lead to a legal fragmentation that favors multiple legal interpretations and institutional choices in decentralized forest management. In fact, each legal order favors the development of specific institutions where forest interventions exist and are led by the NFS.

The paper analyzes the effects of the legal fragmentation on the local forest governance institutional. It criticizes the confrontation of different layers of interests and practice; being mobilized as separate legal domains within a single government.