Photo: World Resources Institute

A new version of an interactive forest atlas will help policy makers improve land governance.

The third edition of the country's interactive forest atlas was launched in Yaounde on Tuesday October 30.

Cameroon now has a viable data bank on recent trends in the forestry sector which could be used to render forest governance more efficient and so its sustainability to the economy and forest communities. The information is contained in the third edition of the Interactive Forest Atlas of Cameroon officially launched in Yaounde yesterday October 30 at a ceremony chaired by the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, Ngole Philip Ngwese.

The over 60-page document contains major findings in the forest sector, the national forest estate in 2011, land use outside of the national forest estate notably mining concessions and the industrial, agricultural plantations as well as the way forward. The atlas presents land use allocation and land cover types in the national forest estate through June 2011, recent trends in the production forests and how decision-makers could use the available data to improve on forest governance and by so doing rendering the sector more profitable for the economy and livelihoods of the forest population. Information on protected areas and the public and private road network, preliminary information about mining concessions likely to affect the country's forests as well as practical examples of its uses also feature prominently in the atlas.

Speaking during the launching ceremony, Mr Ngole Philip Ngwese said "the atlas by itself doesn't solve any problem. But it is an instrument we can use in handling most of the problems we are facing in the forestry sector." Other speakers like the National Coordinator of the World Resources Institute that carried out the survey, Mbouna Duclaire, as well as the Regional Representative of the Central African Regional Programme for the Environment, CARPE, Dr Angu Angu Kenneth, said integrating land use allocations by various ministries under the same platform significantly increases the government's ability to allocate resources more efficiently. Other experts hold that in order for the information contained in the atlas to lead to actions on the ground, stakeholders must be engaged and apply it in decision-making processes.