Sold down the river - Salva le Foreste

CAMEROON 15transition phase to implementation (five years) has led to confusion and, as a result, thecurrent legal status of some concessions is difficult to determine. 6 The World Bank hasrequested that the government revoke all contracts for concessions granted contrary to the1994 law, such as those of the French-based Coron and Thanry (see Part III – CompanyProfiles) which were granted by presidential decree, but little progress has been made.The ministry responsible for the sector is the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, knownas MINEF (Ministère de l’Environnement et des Forêts). The 1994 forestry law, essentially aframework for industrialisation, divides the forests into permanent and non-permanent forestareas. The permanent forest domain is formed by state forests and communal forests. The lawsets out six different types of logging permits: 7Ventes de coupes (Sales of Standing Volume) are no longer issued and should not cover morethan 2,500 hectares and last for a limited period of time (Section 55).Permis d’exploitation (Exploitation permits) which are for the extraction of not more then 500cubic metres of timber (Section 56).Autorization personnelle de coupe (Individual Felling Authorisation) for the extraction of notmore then 30 cubic meteres of wood for non-commercial use (section 57).Conventions d’exploitation (Concessions), which can include one or more Unités forestièresd’aménagement (UFAs) or Forest Management Unit (FMUs). The Concession will be reviewedevery three years and is for a specified volume of timber. (Section 46).Exploitation en régie (State exploitation) via sale of standing volume or exploitation contract(Section 44).Autorization de récupération (Wood recovery permit)Récupération licences are not a normal logging permit but are used as such. Récupérations areusually issued only when a forest is going to be cleared for industrial purposes, such as theestablishment of a palm plantation, where the trees would be destroyed anyway. Thusrécupération permits do not require trees of a minimum diameter to be left nor a forestinventory. Unsurprisingly, they are open to wide abuse. Their potential may be a reason fortheir inappropriate allocation.Of these six types of logging permits, concessions (UFAs) are the only ones that requiremanagement plans and which are allocated through a competitive bidding process. Thisprocess over-emphasises the price component of the bid compared to its technical quality: a70/30 split in the weighting respectively. Industry representatives have complained that theprocess pushes them to put too high a price on the concessions they are bidding for; if theyobtain the concession, they invariably feel under pressure to recover their costs more quicklythan they otherwise would have to. Logging illegally is an easy route. Companies interested insustainability are simply being driven out of business. Pressure by creditors to follow the dueprocess and spirit of the law during the allocation of UFAs may be one of the driving forcesbehind the increasingarea of forest beingallocated instead asvente de coupes whichdo not require amanagement plan and inwhich logging can besubcontracted, possiblyto the same companieslogging the concessions(UFAs).The total area offorest exploited as ventesde coupe has beenincreasing in recentyears. Logging areasallocated under the ventede coupe system cannotlegally exceed 2,500hectares and/or a givenvolume of logs over oneyear; the permit can berenewed twice. In spiteof these limitations,however, logging with avente de coupe permitLogs in the port of Douala,Cameroon© MORGAN/GREENPEACE