Robert Tumasang
12 June 2008
Illegal forest exploitation has become an issue of great concern to environment and forestry officials in the East Province.
Statistics from the East Provincial Delegation of Forestry and Wildlife indicate that 1665 cubic meters of white wood were seized from loggers in the Dengdeng and Goyoum forest reserves between November 2007 and April 2008.
According to the Provincial Chief of Forest Control Brigade, Pone, the seizures came within the framework of an operation dubbed "Operation coup de poing" launched on November 12, 2007 by the East Provincial Delegate for Forestry and Wildlife, Bruno Mfou'ou Mfou'ou.
The operation was intended to weed out loggers from these forests whose conservation is one of the preconditions for the construction of the Lom-Pangar Dam.The wood, according to Pone, was auctioned for FCFA 22,000,000 and the proceeds deposited in the public treasury.
Elsewhere in the Province, 2100 cubic metres of sawn timber were seized from loggers within the same period. Pone further revealed that 18 offence cases related to illegal logging were taken up by the Provincial Delegation the last six months.
He said some of the cases have already been forwarded to the Ministry for further action. Guilty parties could be required by the 1994 forestry laws to suffer prison terms ranging from one year to three years or fines ranging from FCFA 3,000,000 to FCFA 10,000,000.It remains to be seen whether those civil proceedings will lead anywhere, given that those in power generally tend to connive with the loggers.
Setbacks
A recent study carried out in the East Province shows that 21 percent of civil proceedings taken by forestry officials in the East Province against illegal loggers were "stopped by some one on high up."
Tracking down illegal loggers is hampered by a number of factors. Eco-guards are so poorly equipped that they find it difficult to monitor large areas of forestland. Secondly, they are few in number as one forest controller has to monitor over 20,000 hectares of concessions and loggers have developed the instinct to skirt the controllers.
More over, even legitimate loggers, pushed by the profit impulse, usually go beyond their legitimate bounds.A 2001 study by Brown and Ekoto entitled: "Forest Encounters: Synergy Among Agents of Forest and Natural Resources Management in Southern Cameroon", states that "a company may falsify its tax declarations to conceal illegal logging especially when logging an area for the first time.
For instance, the company, ETD, operating in UFA 10 to 047 logged an area of 12,300 hectares instead of the 2,500 hectares it was legally allowed to log. The total loss of tax revenue, based on area cut and estimated timber harvested exceeds two billions FCFA."
In all this, the indigenous people, particularly the Baka, benefit very little from the forest of which they are the natural custodians. Their location is quite ambiguous: too accessible to loggers, too remote for the benefits of modern life to make themselves felt.
The problem of illegal logging and, indeed, wanton forest exploitation has become so serious that in 2005, WWF warned during a Forestry Summit in Brazzaville, Congo, that "if illegal logging is not stopped, the Congo Basin's forest reserves, which include those of the East Province, would disappear by 50 percent in the next 50 years".
While officials of the East Provincial Delegation of Forestry and Wildlife have succeeded in weeding out loggers from the Goyoum and Dengdeng Forest Reserves, officials of the Delegation of the Environment and Nature Protection are sensitising the population to plant more trees.
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