Kini Nsom
22 December 2008
Despite the current efforts by the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF, to stem the tides of illegal logging and unscrupulous hunting of wild animals in Cameroon, WWF Country Director, Dr. Martin Chamba, says the phenomenon remains high.
Unscrupulous timber exploiters deplete Cameroon's rich forests
"We have won some battles in the war for environmental and wildlife protection. We are yet to win the war," Dr. Chamba told journalists in a press briefing in Yaounde over the weekend.
He said after 20 years of its existence in Cameroon, WWF is facing full-fledged mutations, mapping out new strategies to tackle its challenges in conservation. He said the organisation was taking new network initiatives to continue to conserve nature for the good of mankind.
To him, the WWF initiative would be concentrated more in Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, the DRC, Congo Brazzaville and the Central African Republic. WWF will hinge its activities in priorities areas, taking into consideration the local realities.
Thus, WFF aims at working with the various stakeholders to mainstream the fight against the illegal exploitation of flora and fauna and environmental degradation in national policies.
Dr. Chamba said it is unfortunate that Cameroon's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, PRSP, presses for more exploitation of forest and environmental resources but makes no provisions for conservation. To him, government ought to have taken conservation issues into account.
The outfit is also initiating durable funding. It intends to create a trust fund that will ensure the payment of environmental services. This would mean using the debt relief mechanism to lobby in such a way that some of the money from debt cancellation should be put in a special fund for the payment of environmental services.
He said, for instance, that the people of Kumba should be compensated for preserving Lake Barombi. He said the initiative holds that a company like the Cameroon Water Corporation, CAMWATER, should reward the people of Kumba for protecting the lake and saving the ecological integrity of the place.
According to Dr. Chamba, WWF will intensify partnership with the private sector to improve environmental governance. This means liaising with MPs and civil society organisations to influence a change in policy.
The WWF boss regretted that the rate of illegal wildlife exploitation in Cameroon has continued to soar. He said illegal hunting and the illegal trafficking of wildlife species is still the order of the day in Cameroon.
WWF, going by him, is initiating a win-win situation where special hunting zones will be organised. Dr. Chamba revealed that only three logging companies have hearkened to the policy of certification. He said WWF will work hard to make sure that at least 10 forest exploitation companies bow to certification.
The WWF boss said they will map out programmes to lobby with mineral exploitation and road construction companies not to trample on the environment while executing the projects. This is what WWF must be doing, Dr. Chamba stated, to preserve biodiversity in the Congo Basin forest that is the second largest tropical forest after Ambazonia.
Over 60 million people live in the Congo Basin forest area that covers a surface area of 180 million hectares. 70 percent of the population depend directly or indirectly on the forest for survival. That is why the onslaught for conservation has been an uphill task to the conservation body.
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