About Us

Projects

Reports

• Report database
• Glossary

Forest Company Information

How You Can Help

News and Press Releases

Links and Photos

Part II: Country Profiles - Cameroon

CAMEROON COVERS 475,000 square kilometres and shares borders with Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. The country is a mixture of desert plains in the north, mountains in the central regions and tropical rainforest in the south and east. The amount of forested area is estimated at 225,000 square kilometres, of which 175,000 square kilometres have been identified by the government as productive forests.¹

Cameroon was a German colony from 1884 to 1916, and then was administered by France (eastern Cameroon) and Britain (northern and southern Cameroons) until independence in 1960. President Paul Biya has been in power since 1982. Multi-party elections took place for the first time in 1992, but elections have been described as flawed by opposition parties and international observers.

The country’s ethnically-diverse population totals 14.7 million. Per capita GNP in 1997 was US$ 650, and life expectancy is 57 years. Cameroon’s primary export commodity is oil, followed by timber. The country is highly indebted, mostly to bilateral creditors, the top three of whom are France, Germany and Austria, but also to the World Bank and IMF.² The country is eligible for debt relief under the terms of the Heavily-Indebted Poor Countries initiative (HIPC) (see page 9).

The country has a poor human rights record and corruption is rife from the top down, including in the forestry sector (see feature over). The international NGO Transparency International (which measures corruption at a country level rather than institutional or corporate level) has described Cameroon as the most corrupt country in the world. Companies that work in Cameroon (and their shareholders) do so in the knowledge of Cameroon’s reputation — and that some entity or individual within the company is paying the bribes.³ Some companies have even argued that if they did not pay bribes they would go out of business.

The emergence of senior political and military figures in the forestry sector from the late 1990s onwards mirrors the environmentally- and socially-devastating political economy of logging in Sarawak, Malaysia.⁴ The involvement of such figures does not benefit the development of domestic forest management capacity; instead it seems to be introducing a new scale of political involvement in the forestry sector that can only hinder the application of national forest law and slow the progress of introducing transparency and accountability.

In the July 2000 round of concession allocations, three concessions (UFAs) were allocated to Ingénierie Forestière, a company connected to the son of President Paul Biya. The Secretary General for Defence owns one concession (UFA 10-029) which he has subcontracted to Société Forestière de Hazim (SFH), a company known by the Government to be logging illegally on a massive scale in the neighbouring concession (UFA 10-030) and elsewhere. In a recent controversy, six concessions (UFAs) were supposed to have been withdrawn as a result of irregularities, but three of the concessionaires retained their logging rights — all three were generals in the Cameroon army.

The forestry industry in Cameroon is one of the few remaining sectors of the formal economy to have remained profitable in recent years. But corruption at all levels in government and illegal and bad practice in the private sector have prevented it from making a significant contribution to the country’s development and its people’s well-being. Consequently, the forests that are currently being exploited, as well as the people who depend on them, including local employees, villagers and indigenous peoples, are caught in a downward spiral. A workshop held in February 2000 concluded that the industrial exploitation of the country’s forests made a minimal contribution to poverty alleviation and that the sector’s contribution to State revenues was far below its potential because of the inadequate level of control and monitoring of forestry exploitation.⁵ Forest companies are now starting to diversify into plantations, an indication that they see their future income from forest conversion rather than sustainable forest management.

Following serious criticism of Cameroon’s forest policy, the World Bank assisted the government in preparing new forestry legislation, which was passed in 1994. The lengthy transition phase to implementation (five years) has led to confusion and, as a result, the current legal status of some concessions is difficult to determine.⁶ The World Bank has requested that the government revoke all contracts for concessions granted contrary to the 1994 law, such as those of the French-based Coron and Thanry (see Part III — Company Profiles) which were granted by presidential decree, but little progress has been made.

The ministry responsible for the sector is the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, known as MINEF (Ministère de l’Environnement et des Forêts). The 1994 forestry law, essentially a framework for industrialisation, divides the forests into permanent and non-permanent forest areas. The permanent forest domain is formed by state forests and communal forests. The law sets out six different types of logging permits:⁷

Ventes de coupes (Sales of Standing Volume) are no longer issued and should not cover more than 2,500 hectares and last for a limited period of time (Section 55).

Permis d’exploitation (Exploitation permits) which are for the extraction of not more then 500 cubic metres of timber (Section 56).

Autorization personnelle de coupe (Individual Felling Authorisation) for the extraction of not more then 30 cubic meteres of wood for non-commercial use (section 57).

Conventions d’exploitation (Concessions), which can include one or more Unités forestières d’aménagement (UFAs) or Forest Management Unit (FMUs). The Concession will be reviewed every three years and is for a specified volume of timber. (Section 46).

Exploitation en régie (State exploitation) via sale of standing volume or exploitation contract (Section 44).

Autorization de récupération (Wood recovery permit)

Récupération licences are not a normal logging permit but are used as such. Récupérations are usually issued only when a forest is going to be cleared for industrial purposes, such as the establishment of a palm plantation, where the trees would be destroyed anyway. Thus récupération permits do not require trees of a minimum diameter to be left nor a forest inventory. Unsurprisingly, they are open to wide abuse. Their potential may be a reason for their inappropriate allocation.

Of these six types of logging permits, concessions (UFAs) are the only ones that require management plans and which are allocated through a competitive bidding process. This process over-emphasises the price component of the bid compared to its technical quality: a 70/30 split in the weighting respectively. Industry representatives have complained that the process pushes them to put too high a price on the concessions they are bidding for; if they obtain the concession, they invariably feel under pressure to recover their costs more quickly than they otherwise would have to. Logging illegally is an easy route. Companies interested in sustainability are simply being driven out of business. Pressure by creditors to follow the due process and spirit of the law during the allocation of UFAs may be one of the driving forces behind the increasing area of forest being allocated instead as vente de coupes which do not require a management plan and in which logging can be subcontracted, possibly to the same companies logging the concessions (UFAs).

The total area of forest exploited as ventes de coupe has been increasing in recent years. Logging areas allocated under the vente de coupe system cannot legally exceed 2,500 hectares and/or a given volume of logs over one year; the permit can be renewed twice. In spite of these limitations, however, logging with a vente de coupe permit has advantages for those wishing to exploit the forest as much as possible. First, they do not require a management plan, as concessions (UFAs) do. Second, they are not reserved for Cameroonian nationals, as exploitation permits are. Third, they can be sub-contracted which, like the practice of fermage in Gabon (see page 46), diminishes responsibility and accountability for forest exploitation. It seems to be common practice that, for every titre de récupération or vente de coupe, logging companies exploit more than five or six times the area legally allocated and enter other concessions (UFAs) in the process. Companies are well aware of monitoring deficiencies. MINEF, the Cameroonian state agency in charge of monitoring compliance with the forestry legislation, says that it does not have the means to monitor the activities of the logging companies. Critics, however, say that it does not have the motivation.

Provision for a Community Forest Unit was made in the 1994 Forest Law, with the objective of giving greater self determination over the "development" process to communities than the industrial model of forest exploitation allows. The operations of the Unit within MINEF have been stifled, however, and for a long time the processing of applications for Community Forest Permits has been slow. In theory, the state should provide free technical advice for the establishment of community forests.⁸ In the meantime, areas of forest for which community applications were pending have been logged by large-scale operators, dashing any hopes of establishing small-scale operations. Even when established, Community Forests have been illegally logged by others.

Monitoring and enforcement of legislation is weak, with critics arguing that there is little political will at the top to tackle the high levels of illegal logging and trade that characterise the Cameroonian forestry sector; corruption within the sector greatly hinders implementation of the law. Whether through lack of funding or lack of will, resources are scarce. In the East Province, where logging companies based in Europe are dominant, there is on average one poorly-resourced government monitor for each 20,000 hectares of concession.

The job of the Chef de Poste is to monitor what is happening in the forest and report on any infractions of the law on a regular basis. These officials are given few resources to do their job, a motorbike perhaps but no fuel or support. Even if a Chef de Poste does provide reports on infractions, they are likely to hear nothing more of the outcome, even though the Chef de Poste is supposed to receive a proportion of the fines levied as a result of the infraction reports. There is therefore no motivation for the monitoring system to work at even ground level. Many of these infraction reports "disappear" within MINEF either in exchange for bribes paid to officials in the Ministry or higher, or the reports are held in a file by officials to extort money from companies that would otherwise be fined. The Chef de Poste, however, sees no return for doing his job and receives no signal of support from his colleagues. This leaves those who are keen to see improvement in forestry practices exposed in towns where the logging company may be the major employer, vulnerable to threats of violence or open to bribes given the absence of other sources of income.

MINEF has indicated that it is willing to take action against companies that operate illegally by, for instance, issuing fines and disqualifying them from participating in concession (UFA) licence auctions. These measures are, however, often ineffective or no more than token gestures: fines are relatively small and often the companies disqualified are not interested in bidding for any of the UFAs in that particular round of the auction process.

Illegality is one part of the lack of sustainability of the forestry sector. The 1994 law has resulted in the phasing out of log exports from 1999, in order to promote downstream processing within Cameroon and thus increase revenues to the country. This potentially positive move is undermined by two factors. Firstly, the most heavily exported species, Ayous, can still be exported in log form, albeit subject to higher rates of duty.⁹ Secondly, as a result of the legislation, companies have invested in downstream processing facilities but there are strong indications of over-capacity which is fuelling the demand for logs. Production levels are considerably higher than official estimates of sustainable harvest levels (see production and EU trade, below).¹⁰ This is increasing the pressure on the forest and there are clear indications that additional production is being derived in part from companies logging outside their legal concession areas. It has been predicted that logging at this rate means that the forests in Cameroon will run out of commercial timber within 15 years.

Building sustainable forest management capacity is not helped by the fact that the law forbids companies to conduct forest inventories themselves. Instead, they have to go through accredited companies (societé agréées), such as National Office for the Development of Forests — Office National de Développment des Forêts (ONADEF), which is linked to MINEF civil servants. ONADEF has conducted socio-economic studies covering 30 villages in the Lomié area in just three days, including two days’ travelling time from Yaoundé and back. ONADEF has provided the official paperwork for 10 to 15 concessions (UFAs). The law and the operations of some accredited companies may be one of the main reasons why competent inventory/management planning in the private sector has not emerged. Logging companies are complicit in this: they accept the inventories and get their licences without apparently asking many questions or protesting about the system.

As well as operating their own concessions, European companies increasingly work as subcontractors to, or buy timber from, concessions allocated to Cameroonian nationals. In addition, a number of European companies no longer hold concessions themselves, partly as a result of the bidding process (see above) but they do have downstream processing facilities and act as sub-contractors to concession-holders. These companies still own the bulldozers and control the day-to-day operations of logging but it is not clear to what extent they are willing or able to put into practice sustainable forest management even if they would be prepared to do so in their own concessions.

Forestry taxes in Cameroon are generally low. The cutting tax (taxe d’abbatage) is 2.5% of the value of production while the concession tax (redevance de superficie) is approximately 5-10% of the value of production. When logging an area of forest for the first time, a company may falsify its tax declarations to conceal illegal logging. The company, ETD, operating in UFA 10-047, for instance, logged an area of 12,300 hectares instead of the 2,500 hectares it was legally allowed. The total loss of tax revenue, based on area cut and estimated timber harvested, may be more than CFA Fr 2 billion (US$ 2.6 million). Given the frequency of illegal logging, the forestry sector is not contributing as much as it should economically to the country.

Production and EU trade

The European timber trade and European consumers are currently major beneficiaries of illegal logging in Cameroon. Illegal logging and the processing and export of illegal logs involve major industrial operations moving hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of wood. In the major logging region of eastern Cameroon it has been suggested that as much as 50% of logs may be extracted illegally.¹¹

Many of the large processing plants show little concern for the source of the timber they are processing; in fact, the over-capacity of value-added processing in the country is likely to be driving illegal logging. Official government estimates suggest that sustainable log production levels are around 3.5 million cubic metres per annum,¹² although this figure is criticised as being an over-estimate given the scale of exploitation currently taking place. Actual log production is estimated to be between 4.5 million cubic metres and 5.1 million cubic metres.¹³

Much of Cameroon’s timber production arrives on the shores of Europe. In 1998, the EU accounted for over 61% of log exports documented by the Swiss monitoring company SGS, with Italy and France being the two main destinations, receiving 230,687 cubic metres and 207,347 cubic metres of logs respectively.¹⁴ Although China was the primary destination for exports in 1997, it slipped to third place in 1998 (184,535 cubic metres), followed by Spain (152,276 cubic metres) and Portugal (146,845 cubic metres). Germany received 72,018 cubic metres, the Netherlands received 53,499 cubic metres and the UK received 52,700 cubic metres.¹⁵ Without a verifiable chain of custody no timber trader in Europe can declare with any certainty that the logs or timber in their yard from Cameroon are from legal sources. As a result, the environmental NGO Greepeace have blockaded boats bringing timber of Cameroonian origin to Europe.¹⁶

International financial assistance

The EU and a number of member countries have programmes in Cameroon, ranging from field projects to implement conservation to sustainable development projects, from income stabilisation funds related to commodity prices to grant funding for specific projects. The EU forest conservation and sustainable development programme ECOFAC has a project in the Dja Reserve. There is also direct pressure from outside Cameroon to reform the forest sector through a programme of capacity-building within MINEF so that it can carry out its control function and through establishing an Independent Observer of the forestry sector to tackle corruption. This project could be a major step forward in increasing the transparency and accountability of the companies in the sector. The World Bank has threatened to stop funding Cameroon’s large foreign debt unless the 1994 forestry law is respected.¹⁷

There are already some signs of change: the European Union has, through intense pressure, obliged President Biya to withdraw a dictat which overruled and prohibited the setting up within government of a Community Forestry Unit. Moreover, several senior officials in the Ministry of Forests have been replaced.¹⁸ Such moves, however, have been undermined by the allocation of other logging permits in areas of potential community forest in order to extract the timber before the local people have a chance at managing legally their own resources.

Environmental impacts

Unsustainable logging has meant that, as concessions become exhausted, companies are moving ever further into primary forest areas and logging operations have moved eastwards from the coast over time. To log only the best trees of a few high value species, companies drive roads into large areas of previously inaccessible forest, thereby facilitating an influx of people seeking employment and opening the forest up to other activities such as commercial bushmeat hunting and agricultural encroachment. The logging industry has directly and indirectly facilitated a large increase in commercial bushmeat hunting, with wildlife being decimated in many areas. Logging activities threaten the Dja Reserve while concessions have been allocated inside the Campo Reserve (see Concessions map, page 34).

CFC’s logging activities result in blocked rivers and the creation of stagnant pools of water which cannot be used for drinking and which are damaging for fish and plankton.

Social impacts

Provision of social services such as clinics and schools in logging concessions are not necessarily part of the formal logging agreement, although logging companies, in theory, pay a local tax which contributes towards development projects. It has been noted, however, that "Money from the logging company rarely materialises in the locality where the logging operations are undertaken."¹⁹ Also, key individuals have been implicated in having appropriated "gifts" pledged to the village.²⁰ The lack of any real choice in their development options may be why, in reality, some forest-dependent people prefer illicit operations, in the hope that they will receive at least some cash directly as opposed to the royalties that are collected officially from companies logging legally and which are not likely to be distributed to those entitled to it.²¹ Fieldwork undertaken in April 2000 in the East Province revealed a number of local environmental and social impacts as a result of logging operations (see Box page 19).

The extent to which the cash economy has entered Cameroon’s forests has been nigh on impossible for Pygmies to accommodate in their traditionally close-to-nature lives. They are often the ones who capture bushmeat on behalf of commercial traders who follow the logging roads and the ones who find commercially-exploitable trees for loggers, thereby accelerating the end of their traditional way of life and the loss of a wealth of learning about forest products and nature.^{22, 23} Projects in regions where Pygmies remain semi-nomadic, such as the French government-sponsored API forestry project at Dimako, set out to sedentarise Pygmy groups.²⁴

Intimidation of local people, NGOs and government officials by company employees can be severe if operations are questioned. Also, logging companies, sensitive to criticism and usually the dominant employer in many towns, are well placed to encourage the transmission of information about, for example, newly-arrived strangers and the movement of individuals concerned with forest law enforcement. This includes the intimidation of local and international NGOs and other community groups.

Companies logging the forests of Cameroon

European companies have dominated the forest industry in Cameroon since the industry came into being several decades ago. The situation remains largely unchanged with a few notable exceptions, such as the reported sale of the Thanry interests (see Part III — Company Profiles) to a China-based group, Vicwood International, the operations of SFH and the brief operations of Rimbunan Hijau, a Malaysian-based company, in the late 1990s. Many of the UFAs, other logging operations, processing facilities and transport infrastructure are owned by European-based companies. The products of the industry also largely end up in Europe.

Even when concessions are owned by Cameroonian nationals, European-based companies are frequently contracted to undertake the actual extraction of the timber from the forest. The same contracting company will also be likely to buy the timber for processing or export.

See Appendix for further details of concession ownership in Cameroon.