New Tool to Help Cameroon Combat Illegal Logging

by Peter Denton

A powerful new tool released recently by World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch (GFW) will help the Cameroon government better assess and allocate forest resources throughout their country and support better law enforcement and governance.

In 2002, GFW and the government of Cameroon brokered a historic partnership to help the battle against illegal logging. This agreement marked the first remote-sensing and monitoring partnership between an African government and an independent group and has recently produced a report on the state of forest concessions and a mapping tool that will help officials from Cameroon's Ministry of Forests and Fauna (MINFOF) to uncover illegal logging throughout the country.

"Widespread illegal logging contributes to the destruction of forests and the loss of badly needed revenues across much of Central Africa," said Benoît Mertens, Cameroon project coordinator for GFW. The forest-mapping tool, released on March 7, is the product of two years of GFW work with the Cameroon government and many years of institutional experience with similar projects around the globe.

GFW creates maps of logging roads by interpreting satellite images and combines these maps with information on the legal boundaries of forest titles and protected areas. Due to this work, Cameroon's MINFOF will now be able to identify problem areas and prioritize them for field audits. The maps produced under this agreement also provide information on the status of the implementation of Sustainable Forest Management Plans for the forest concessions of Cameroon.

"We employ the latest technologies like satellite imagery and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), but without the cooperation of the government, of our local partners, as well as from the private sector in Cameroon, we would never have been able to acquire the data required for the production of this very important tool," said Pierre Methot, GFW Central Africa program manager. "We hope this atlas will become an integral part of the decision-making process in the sustainable management of the country's forest ecosystems."

Cameroon contains some of Africa's most biologically diverse and most threatened forests. The region's tropical forests, covering nearly 200 million hectares, extend from southern Cameroon through five other Central African countries. It is the second-largest contiguous tract of rainforest in the world, after the Amazon Basin

About 76 percent of more than 17 million hectares of Cameroon's forests - totaling some 22.8 million hectares - have either been logged or are allocated as logging concessions. Less than a fifth of the country's unprotected forests, mostly in central and eastern Cameroon, remain free from logging.

Methot and others with GFW stressed that the recently released atlas is not a panacea to the illegal logging dilemma. "This tool will help in the battle for sustainable and responsible logging," said Methot, "but only when used in conjunction with good governance and rigorous field work."

GFW staff and partners have started training activities in Cameroon so that government officials, industry and civil society are able to properly use the atlas and incorporate it into their daily decision-making. An integral part of GFW's plan is a large investment of technology to help Cameroon fight illegal loggers.

"All of the parties involved recognize that this version of the atlas constitutes a first step," said Egbe Achuo Hillman, Cameroon Minister of Forests and Wildlife. "By contributing to this atlas, the Government of Cameroon confirms its commitment to increased transparency and good governance. Subsequent efforts will be focused on keeping this tool up to date as well as training key practitioners in its use and integration in decision-making processes."

GFW has been working for more than six years to catalyze changes in global forest use to meet human needs and better protect forest ecosystems. GFW also has a similar agreement in place in the Republic of Congo and aims at producing similar map-based tools throughout Central Africa over the next several years. (WRI Features, 629 words)