Are Cameroon’s forests doomed?

A new map shows mining permits overlap many protected areas in Cameroon

The Interactive Forestry Atlas of Cameroon Version 3.0 has just been released by the World Resources Institute (WRI), giving spatial details on all the management units of Cameroon’s forests for 2011. The data have been released in the form of a report, an excellent interactive map, and the raw GIS files¹. While the report does not give data on rates of deforestation per se, it does show the location and status of forest and mining concessions, as well as the various categories of protected and non protected other forests.

I downloaded the data yesterday, and expected to spend this morning overlaying the active logging concessions on satellite imagery, to test my ability to detect forest degradation. However, opening the full dataset, I was immediately horrified by a different spatial layer. It appears that mining permits have now been issued for almost 10 million hectares of Cameroon, about a fifth of the country’s total area. 85 % of these overlap with forested areas, and 40 % of these concessions overlap forest designated by the government as ‘Permanent Forest Estate’, that is land that is meant to remain forest in perpetuity. Incredibly, 20 % overlap some form of protected area, and nine concessions overlap with National Parks.

Figure produced by Ed Mitchard using data from Data from the WRI Interactive Forest Atlas of Cameroon 3.0.

Mining permits are not all the same: most of these are exploratory, and do not allow for widespread extraction. However, for the government to issue them at all there must be an assumption in the Ministry of Mines that these exploratory permits could be converted to extractive permits if the companies involved find significant deposits. This surely should not be allowed within the official Permanent Forest Estate, let alone in national parks. It seems likely that officials high up in Cameroon’s government have given authority for the supposedly concrete forest protection areas to be changed if there are economically important mineral deposits underneath.

For me, the most breathtaking overlap is the two permits that cover 20 % of the Dja Biosphere Reserve in southern Cameroon. The Dja Reserve  is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the most important national parks in central Africa. It contains over 600,000 hectares of near-undisturbed rainforest, an area twice the size of Yosemite National Park, and has a unique assemblage of species. UNESCO has recently published a damming report stating that the Dja Reserve is critically threatened by a combination of mining, commercial agriculture, flooding from a planned hydropower dam, bushmeat hunting and illegal logging. I am part of an effort to set up a Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) project in the area, funded by voluntary sector carbon credits, but such a project has little chance of success if Cameroon does not obey its own laws.

It is difficult to know what to suggest as a solution. I believe that Cameroon has the perfect right to develop, and to develop fast. It is a very poor country with significant unexploited mineral and forest resources, and the reasoning behind this push into mining and commercial agriculture is to build up its economy. This rush towards industrial development is a key pillar in Cameroon’s Vision 2035, a 2009 document which tracks a path to Cameroon becoming a major emerging economy by 2035. However there is a concern, which I share, that the costs of this industrialisation will be borne mostly by the poor, who will be displaced from their land, have their drinking water polluted, and lose their livelihoods. Meanwhile, the benefits will be felt mostly by those who are already rich. Equally I am concerned by the rapid destruction of the country’s natural heritage, with no national or international debate. Open cast mines elsewhere have caused significant environmental damage, removing all vegetation, causing massive erosion, and permanently scaring the landscape.

Open Cast mine in the Philippines.
Picture (c) Storm Crypt, reproduced here under a Creative Commons license.

Cameroon shouldn’t need to grow at the expense of its natural environment. As a country I believe it has so much potential – it has plentiful natural resources, incredible wildlife and a wealth of cultures (over 230 languages are spoken). The wildlife and cultures remain largely intact, and it’s possible to extract the other natural resources without destroying them. Cameroon’s process for allocating forestry concessions is much more transparent than it once was, and Cameroon is now actively involved in reducing illegal logging through the EU’s FLEGT program. If that were to continue and expand, Cameroon could earn a significant income from the sustainable logging of its precious hardwoods while maintaining its protected area network, safeguarding biodiversity and earning further income through ecotourism. Agroforestry programs, involving for example the sustainable growth of cacao to feed the world’s ever-increasing demand for chocolate, could be expanded. Local people, including traditional forest dwellers, could be involved in decisions of whether to explore for minerals or oil, how to extract them, and could share the proceeds.

The external world can help by monitoring what is happening (hence the great utility of this WRI effort) and applying pressure, as well as providing sensible solutions that work for the poor as well as the rich (in terms of both people and countries , for example a well-designed international REDD+ agreement.

¹The GIS files that make this map can all be downloaded here, for 2004-2011. WRI and Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife (MINFOF) should be congratulated for providing these: there is a huge difference between making a report visible online and releasing the underlying data. Having been involved in many conservation projects in African countries I know how difficult and frustrating it can be to obtain baseline spatial data – I have for example before had to spend days painstakingly hand-digitising pdf maps. I am sure the shapefiles will be widely used.