Cameroon – Verdant Cameroon boasts 20 million hectares of forest- nearly half of its national territory. It is Africa’s largest exporter of tropical hardwood to the European Union, most of which is sawn timber destined for Italy and Spain.Though its reputation as an international timber exporter is well-known, its domestic timber market and trade have been documented only recently.
Cameroon’s national forest policies tend to ignore its existence, with no official data collected to assess the sector’s economic, environmental and social impacts, making the State the main loser in the growth of this informal sector.
This is ironic given the astounding volumes traded on this market, as well as the revenues generated from it. Research conducted by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) indicates that if small-scale production of sawn wood sold on the domestic market is accounted for in national statistics, total national production would equal 4.3 million cubic meters per year- nearly double the official figures cited by the government.
Domestic chainsaw milling operations are vital to the well-being of tens of thousands of urban and rural Cameroonians. In recent years, this sector has become as important as the industrial forestry sector, creating 45,000 direct jobs and generating more than $32 billion USD.
So why does this sector continue to operate in the shadows?
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Importance of definitions: ‘Informal’ vs. ‘illegal’
What exactly do we mean by the ‘domestic’ timber sector’? Traditionally, it refers to any logging activity that falls outside of the industrial, export-destined timber sector. It is generally practiced by smallholder farmers who use artisanal tools like axes or chainsaws to harvest wood from roadside forests. The entire value chain of this practice is characterized by informal practices, from felling trees to selling sawnwood.
Therein lies the problem. Laws do not exist to regulate these informal practices.
Calling these forest users ‘illegal’ would infer that they are willing to break the laws when in fact, these laws don’t exist. Although informal methods do not always respect the national regulations, they do not necessarily break the law either. For this reason, researchers prefer employing the term ‘informal’ rather than ‘illegal,’ as they do not want to punish smallholders who are devoid of criminal intent.
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Catch-22
In 1994, Cameroon adopted a new forest law that focused on the export-oriented industrial forestry sector. But timber produced through small-scale logging operations for the domestic market remained neglected. This kind of timber remains unrecorded in official statistics.
To add injury to the insult, the few logging permits available to smallholders were suspended from 1999 to 2006. This pushed people to work outside the legal framework, trying to supply a growing domestic demand that remains unfulfilled by the industrial sector to this day.
It’s a Catch-22. Artisanal loggers do not officially exist in the books, and yet are considered criminals in the eyes of the law.
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Rampant corruption
Considering local forest users as criminals is an excuse for thousands of public officials, including the police and armed forces, to collect millions in bribes from smallholders.
The informal nature of the domestic timber trade has created a terrifying, inescapable payment system run by state agents for personal profit.
“They are abusive,” says Mefor Chrisantus, a smallholder who sells timber in the marketplace of Doula. “At every step of the value chain, you are faced with corruption. Officials will tell you that your wood is not legal and demand payment. What can I do? I am powerless. No laws exist to protect me.”
CIFOR research estimates that corrupt Cameroonian government officials collect upwards of $11 million USD per year in these informal payments.
