The ongoing environment forum in Yaounde has identified environment-friendly industrial production processes as a means of preserving biodiversity.

lCameroon is a country in full economic development managed within the framework of the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper, GESP, and Vision 2035 that aims at seeing the economy become an emerging one by 2035. Meeting in Yaounde for a forum on the general state of the environment that started on Monday 24 October and ends today Friday October 28, experts from the civil society and private sector have rubbed minds with senior staff from the central and external services of the Ministry of the Environment and Nature Protection, MINEP, to agree that economic growth and prosperity should integrate industrial activities that consume or emit less carbon; the most feared “greenhouse gas”.

In effect, the experts considered searching for means to conciliate nature conservation and development whereas development requires using natural resources. “At this time, the solution envisaged is sustainable management, the promotion of a green economy and international cooperation,” Minister Hele Pierre had said while opening the forum last Monday. Between the different workshops that have been meeting since Monday, some experts told Cameroon Tribune that in this era of ambitious industrial and economic growth, emphasis should be placed on green economy including production methods that are neither destructive nor degrading to soil, air, water and biological resources like flora and fauna.

Defining green economy as one that results in “improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities,” Dr Blaise Efendene, a senior staff in MINEP, emphasised on the need to integrate low carbon, resource-efficient and socially-inclusive processes in sectors like agriculture, fisheries, forest exploitation, manufacturing, waste management, buildings, transport, tourism and urbanisation. “The green economy will enable Cameroon avoid the mistakes made by developed countries and for which they are now suffering,” he said. He acknowledged that imminent hydroelectric power projects in Lom Pangar, Memve’ele, Mekin, amongst others, were efforts to adopt environmentally clean energy. Other laudable measures, he added, include the obligation for each new industrial project to undertake an environmental impact assessment study.

In its bid to increase growth and employment, government has provided incentives for investments in the domains of innovation and transfer of clean and renewable technology which could be used in all sectors of the economy. This, in an effort to conform to standards of the United Nations Environmental Programme, UNEP. It considers that in a green economy, growth in income should be driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems.

The environment forum ends today with the presentation and adoption of recommendations.