REM Rapport Annuel No. 1 OIF Congo Brazzaville - Forests Monitor

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The semester presented in this report revealed a strong political commitment by the
government to improve forest and fauna resource management and exploitation practices.
This commitment is also illustrated by the opening of negotiations on a Voluntary Partnership
Agreement between the Republic of the Congo and the EU as part of the FLEGT process.
Nevertheless, several areas of improvement concerning the Forest Administration were
identified::
- Some of the processes dealing with the definition or allocation of Forest Units showed
irregularities and a considerable lack of transparency;
- The number of law enforcement missions conducted by MEF during the first half of 2008
reveals a coverage rate that is insufficient compared to the quarterly missions planned by
the Forest Administration
- This, combined with the non-dissuasive nature of fine amounts and their low recovery
rate, creates a situation in which certain types of infractions become recurrent;
- Not updating the litigation registers and delays in transmitting the necessary documents to
the DDEF and the DGEF were commonly observed during REM’s field missions; and
- The DDEFs’ difficulty in applying certain provisions on logging permit allocation is
known to the Ministry. Recommendations have already been formulated on this subject,
but to date no concrete measures have been adopted.
In regard to logging companies’ compliance with the law and regulations, the reoccurrence of
certain situations was revealed, particularly:
- tardy submission of annual logging permit application dossiers;
- poor keeping of field documents, as well as failure to mark stumps, logs and abutments,
apparently linked to the lack of regular inspection by MEF;
- non-payment of taxes and, more severe, non-payment of fines with arrears of several
years; and
- failure to fulfil contractual obligations on time.
In addition, project implementation from 1 January to 31 June 2008 was marked by:
- the conducting of only independent missions (no joint missions), in part because of
difficulties in communicating mission schedules of the various services to REM; and
- a delay at the start of the six months in holding reading committee meetings, delays due
to several successive reading committee meetings being held to amend the same reports,
and delays in obtaining certain documents
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