The Rainforests of Cameroon - PROFOR

Overview 5Joint Research Centre, the Université Catholique de Louvain, and theUniversity of South Dakota (de Wasseige and others 2009) show thataverage gross deforestation between 1990 and 2005 remained modest,around 0.14 percent per year. And the use of more refined sensingtechnology allowed reassessment to 0.14 percent per year, down from0.28 percent, of the rate for gross deforestation previously reportedfor the 1990–2000 period. 1• Improved and internationally recognized management practices in arestructured forest industry. A significant part of industry has restructured,adapting its business model to cost structures that recognizehigher value in the resource base, new investments for managementplans, and increased social and environmental responsibility. By 2006,55 UFAs, covering 4 million hectares (more than 71 percent of theUFA area on which harvesting rights had been awarded by 2005), hadapproved management plans. In that same year, concessions operatingunder management plans supplied more than 85 percent of commercialtimber, up from less than 30 percent in 1998. Compliance withnew regulations has helped reduce annual harvests and increasinglyaligned harvests with the forest’s capacity to regenerate. Althoughmuch remains to be done, the quality of management plans is consideredbetter in Cameroon than in Southeast Asia and Brazil, wheremanagement norms are less precise and often not well enforced. Cameroonhas the highest number of companies seeking certification fromthe Forest Stewardship Council.• Growing recognition of customary rights and the social welfare contributionsof forests. The reforms are explicitly linked with the recognitionof customary rights of Bantu and Pygmy people. For example, for thefirst time, the traditional forest use rights of Baka, Bakola, and otherpeople of the Pygmy group are acknowledged in forest regulations andcontractual arrangements with forest concessionaires.Issues raised during environmental impact assessments have alsostarted to be discussed publicly. Cameroon has established rules to preservecustomary rights in all of its forests and is developing more detailedprovisions to recognize and protect the rights of indigenous people.Greater regulation of industry, greater transparency in forest administration,and greater Delivered recognition by The World of Bank local e-library claims to: to forests improvedThe World Bankthe prospects for community IP : 192.86.100.34 forests, which have progressed rapidly.In 1997 the first two community Mon, 09 Nov 2009 forests 17:06:18 were established. By 2008,agreements had been concluded to create 135 forests on 621,246hectares, and requests for an additional 700,000 hectares of commu-(c) The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank