Cameroon Ban on Endangered Hardwoods, But with a Loophole

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

7/18/99

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE

Cameroon's rainforests remain one of the last vast expanses of old-

growth that logging companies covet. They are being rapidly cleared.

The government has announced a ban on some endangered hardwood

exports, which is revealed in the second piece by RAN to have

outrageous loopholes.

g.b.

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ITEM #1

Title: Cameroon Bans Hardwood Exports

Source: Associated Press

Date: July 1, 1999

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) - Cameroon banned exports of some endangered

hardwoods Thursday - a move that came after five years of heavy

logging denuded vast tracts of tropical rain forests in this Central

African country.

The five year legalization of exports of rare hardwoods such as Iroko,

Moabi, Bibolo, Bubinga expired on June 30 and will not be renewed,

Forestry Minister Sylveste Na'ah Ondoa said.

Beginning Thursday, exports of those woods are completely prohibited,

although more abundant species can continue to be exported under

``conditions to be spelt out by the government,'' he said.

Two valuable types of wood, Sapelli and Ayous, which make up over 50

percent of Cameroon's logging production, will continue to be exported

because they remain in abundance, Ondoa said.

The government will raise taxes on wood exports and fund the creation

of secondary industries such as furniture and craft-making to offset

government losses created by the new law, he added.

Almost half of Cameroon is covered by lush, fertile rain forests that

also extend across Gabon, Congo and Republic of Congo and are exceeded

in size only by the Amazon rain forest.

European and Asian-based timber companies have in recent years begun

aggressively logging the Central African forests as other sources of

quality timber around the world dwindle.

While creating low-paying jobs for desperately poor villagers,

conservation groups like the Cameroon Environmental Defense Group

argue that large-scale logging threatens fragile ecosystems and opens

up remote areas to commercial hunting of endangered animals such as

gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants.

Once logged, many areas are left barren and infertile even for

farming, the environmentalists say.

Although Cameroon's government has promised to strictly enforce the

new law, environmentalists say a potential loophole exists allowing

continued harvesting of the rare wood by local residents. The

activists also worry that corrupt officials may turn a blind eye to

illegal exports.

ITEM #2

Title: CAMEROON HARDWOOD BAN MAY NOT PROVE EFFECTIVE IN SLOWING

RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION

ENDANGERED ANIMAL SPECIES,

AIDS RESEARCH ALSO THREATENED

Source: Rainforest Action Network

221 Pine Street #500

San Francisco, CA 94014

Press contacts:

Erick Brownstein, osani@ran.org

Mark Westlund, ranmedia@ran.org

Telephone: 415/398-4404; fax: 415/398-2732

Website: http://www.ran.org

Status: Distribute freely with credit given to source

Date: July 12, 1999

"The government of Cameroon has slipped the world a fast one. Instead

of implementing its law banning all rainforest log exports, which has

been on the books since January, the government has exempted the two

tree species from which it makes the most money. It's a bad joke, as

if Humboldt County, California, wanted to protect its forests by

banning all logging except for redwood. Cameroon's log ban is not a

forest protection measure, but rather an opportunity to liquidate

what's left of the country's old growth rainforests."

-Erick Brownstein, African Rainforest Campaign Director

Forest protection leaders who have been monitoring the deterioration

of Central Africa's rainforests reacted with alarm at the Cameroon

government's exemption of sapelli and ayous wood from a total log

export ban that has been on the books there since January. These two

hardwoods are the most plentiful in Cameroon's imperiled old growth

rainforests. The continued trade in these species opens most of

Cameroon's forests to the destructive commercial logging that the ban

was intended to prevent.

The log export ban was a significant feature of Cameroon's 1994 forest

policy designed in conjunction with The World Bank's environmental

unit. "Both then and now," says RAN's Brownstein, "logging in Cameroon

is completely out of control. The government is overrun with

corruption, and the forests and their inhabitants - both human and

animal - are in danger of being displaced or destroyed."

Logging roads cut deep into the heart of the rainforest will allow

unprecedented access to vast, remote forest regions and to the wild

animal population. The commercial hunting of wild animals has reached

a fever pitch, far outstripping sustainable consumption. The

chimpanzee, as well as other great apes and endangered species, are in

peril of being wiped out by this so-named "bushmeat" trade.

This past February, AIDS scientists announced a study proving the

source of Human Immunodificiency Virus Type 1 (HIV-1), the virus that

causes AIDS in humans, to be a subspecies of chimpanzees native to the

logging-threatened old growth rainforests of Cameroon. Many of the

healing medicines available today originated from rainforest

biological sources, and now it seems that a solution to the AIDS

crisis may come from the rainforests of West-Central Africa.

"Cameroon's refusal to ban all log exports practically assures that

the old growth rainforests that may hold effective treatments and a

cure for AIDS will be cut to the ground, and the chimpanzees that

might carry answers tot he AIDS puzzle will be killed for food," said

Brownstein.

Rainforest Action Network works to protect the Earth's rainforests and

support the rights of their inhabitants through education, grassroots

organizing and non-violent direct action. RAN's Africa Campaign is

funded as part of a $1-million grant from the Richard and Rhoda

Goldman Fund.

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