Cameroon Flashcards
Environmental
- Habitat Fragmentation
- Cross River Gorillas (200-300)
- Endangered Nigerian-Cameroon chimpanzees
- Threatened forest elephants and pangolins
Timber industry
- $780 million industry
- 30% of national income
- 7% of GDP
- 27,000 direct jobs
- 150,000 indirect jobs
GIS apps
- Open Data Kit
- Mapping for Rights
Forest Defenders
- 100 trained
- 185 killed in 2015 in 16 countries for defending their lands, forests and rivers
Cameroon Forestry Law 1994
- Appointing independent observers to identify and publish illegal logging practices
- Community-based forest management
- Increased timber prices and revenue returned to people
- Creation of permanent forests (30% of Cameroon)
- New, sustainable logging practices
1994 law stats
- 8% increase in land allocation for protected areas
- 300 community designed forests
- Illegal logging decline to 10% of timber production
Deforestation stats
- Fourfold rise between 2006-2014
- 120,000 hectares lost in 2016
- Over 18% of forests lost since 1990
1994 weaknesses
- Illegal logging still concern
- Fines too small and too few reported (25 out of 100 in corruption)
- Huge lack of workforce to monitor illegal logging and corruption
Rapid deforestation still occuring
1994 reforms
- 2016
- 4 licences suspended
- 35 issued with warnings
- fines over $88000
Birth rate
4.54
REDD+
Reduced Emissions for Deforestation and Forest Degradation
REDD+ funding
$118m out of $43b
REDD+ aims
Halt CO2 emissions by 2030 by funding local and region afforestation projects in developing nations
REDD+ in Cameroon
- Financial incentives to keep forests intact
- Land management planning and mapping
- Training in afforestation practices and beekeeping
- Making protected areas
REDD+ problems
- Lack of indigenous co-operation
- Income levels decreased
- Farmers question practices
- Moved the problem
Intact forest social benefits
- Food availability
- Indigenous communities (culture, lives)
- Non-timber products (food, medicine) (income)
Social impact
Creation of the Trans-Cameroon Railway (1970)
- Enabled logging operations further south-east into deep forest
- Increased transport infrastructure and accessibility into these areas for agricultural industries
Reasons for deforestation
- Rising population
- Agricultural expansion (74% of deforestation)
- Rubber, palm oil, tea, sugar cane, bananas, coffee, cocoa
Local response
Citizens take geo-tagged photos of illegally cut stumps, uploading them to GIS databases with their phones in exchange for mobile credit.
