Cameroon
Monitoring to curb illegal logging in Cameroon

afrol News, 7 June - A mafia of illegal loggers is rapidly depleting Cameroon's forests; some of the most biologically diverse and most threatened forests on the African continent. Now, the Cameroonian government has agreed to an extensive satellite monitoring programme that will reveal illegal operations.

Yesterday, Cameroon's Minister of Environment and Forests, and JG Collomb signed an agreement with the UN agency World Resources Institute's (WRI) Global Forest Watch to share data and maps about the country's forests in a bid to curb rampant illegal logging. 

- Widespread illegal logging contributes to the destruction of forests and the loss of badly needed revenues across much of Central Africa, the second biggest rainforest in the world, said WRI President Jonathan Lash in a statement released yesterday. "This landmark partnership with the government of Cameroon will provide the data needed to promote law enforcement to curb this destruction."

According to WRI, this is the first map-based monitoring agreement of its kind in Africa, and is the first entered into by the two-year-old Global Forest Watch (a WRI sub-agency). 

The agreement stipulates that Cameroon's Ministry of Environment and Forests (MINEF) will provide Global Forest Watch with information on forest concessions and allocations in the country. In turn, WRI will produce reports on the state of forest concessions in Cameroon and create maps that will enable MINEF officials to detect illegal logging in the country. 

Maps of logging roads created by Global Forest Watch from satellite imagery, combined with accurate information on where logging may legally take place, will permit the identification of problem areas and prioritise them for field audits. Satellite imagery makes it possible to detect new logging roads outside of active concession areas and in national parks. They will also help to determine whether the rate and extent of logging follows forest management plans. The information will be publicly available and can be accessed through WRI's website.

Dirk Bryant, founder and co-director of Global Forest Watch said: "We can employ the latest modern technologies like satellite imagery, but without the cooperation of the government and our local partners, we can never successfully provide the needed data to conserve Cameroon's remaining forests."

About 76 percent or over 17 million hectares of Cameroon's forests - totalling some 22.8 million hectares - have either been logged or are allocated as logging concessions. Less than a fifth of the country's unprotected forests, mostly in central and eastern Cameroon, remain free from logging. Only about 6 percent or 1.4 million hectares of Cameroon's forests are protected as national parks or reserves.

However, recent studies by Global Forest Watch reveals that large tracts of Cameroon's forests which were originally thought of as untouched have already been accessed by logging roads. According to WRI, the most severe impact of logging and road construction on wildlife in Central Africa is "the expanded movement of commercial hunters into remote forests." Commercial-scale hunting of this kind - much of it to supply urban markets - has left many forests empty of key animal species. 

Cameroon's forests contain some of the Congo Basin's most biologically diverse and most threatened forests. The region's tropical forests, which covered more than 198 million hectares in 1995, are the second largest contiguous rain forests in the world after those of the Amazon. It runs through six Central African countries, Cameroon representing the forests' north-western fringe. 

Curbing illegal logging in Cameroon has been seen as a difficult task, given the country's geography and what the Cameroonian press calls a "mafia network" of national and international logging companies. This "bottomless plundering" has been made possible by the "general corruption, despite of the 1994 forest laws," considered a pioneering legislation protecting the environment in the Congo Basin.

It remains unclear whether WRI's new cooperation with the Cameroonian government might put an end to this situation. Reports from Cameroon more than indicate that Army Staff, leaders of the governing RDPC party and members of the family of President Paul Biya are deeply involved in illegal logging. 

Sources: Based on WRI and afrol archives

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