Presenting the findings of the Local Independent Forest Observers Support Project in a two-day workshop that ended last Thursday, May 12 in Yaounde, Angèle Amkoh, a facilitator, said exploitation of wood without permit, intense poaching activities, influence peddling by elite, fraudulent use of forest exploitation licences, abandonment of logs, non-respect of felling rules and unauthorised exploitation in non-permanent forest domains, amongst others, are carried out by a vast majority of forest exploiters operating in council forests, community forests and other forest domains in areas investigated such as Lomié, Abong Mbang, Dja, Messamena and Nanga Eboko.
According to the coordinator of the project, Christiane Tobith Nzengue, the negative consequences on the communities are enormous. “Economically, illegal exploitation of wood has led to road degradation and the destruction of farms and plantations,” she said. The socio-cultural effects, she added, include fatal accidents, conflicts between local communities, non-respect of sacred sites and destruction of medicinal plants.
The two-day workshop that was organised by the Centre for Environment and Development, CED, was aimed at doing a mid-term evaluation and presentation of the findings of illegal forest exploitation by the Local Independent Forest Observers Support Project. The latter is a civil society initiative whose long term objective is to contribute to the reduction and denunciation of illegal forest exploitation through the involvement of local communities and civil society organisations, CSOs, in the monitoring of timber exploitation activities.
