Greenpeace Africa has just launched the Cameroonian Climate Justice Movement (CCJM) in Cameroon. This network, which brings together nearly 40 civil society organisations from 10 regions of Cameroon working in the field of environment protection, will serve as a platform for exchange and decision-making with a view to collective action to better protect the environment in Cameroon. For its first action, the CCJM mobilised nearly 500 Cameroonians for a march that ended with the handing over to the Cameroonian Minister of Environment of a letter calling for more concrete action on the ground to protect the forests. This letter contains the grievances of local and indigenous communities affected by deforestation, collected during the last national workshop held in April 2024 in Kribi.
"The pressure on the environment is increasing, and the need for a global response is more urgent than ever. The planet is being squeezed from all sides: fossil fuel industries, plastic pollution, deforestation, and so on. We believe that collective action will give greater resonance to our voices and our demands. This morning, the Movement took a first step by addressing the Cameroonian government with the demands of communities affected by deforestation, and we believe that similar collective actions will have a greater impact on the ground,' said Dr Fabrice Lamfu, Forest Campaigner at Greenpeace Africa.
Before Cameroon, the Climate Justice Movement was launched last March in the Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing together nearly 30 civil society organisations. After Cameroon, the Climate Justice Movement will be launched in Ghana in the coming weeks.
'The challenges faced by the African continent as a result of climate change are enormous. Greenpeace Africa wants to mobilise a large number of civil society actors as well as local and indigenous community leaders so that together they can propose solutions specific to the African context so that the continent stops importing solutions,' adds Dr. Lamfu.
Cameroon remains prey to several threats linked to climate change, and phenomena such as massive deforestation are worsening the climate prognosis. So much so that in April 2024, Greenpeace Africa and a coalition of national and foreign civil society organisations sent a letter to certain foreign governments to express their concern about large-scale deforestation in Cameroon.
