Cameroon

The OED report considers that even if the Bank influenced the ongoing process of forest policy reform in Cameroon, it "made no provisions for implementation or enforcement of those provisions". The document states that the Bank did not attempt all the right and relevant things prescribed by the 1991 policy, and made several mistakes from a strategic point of view. As a result there is a gap between the stated policies and their implementation.

The World Bank is apparently willing to play a major role in the promotion of tree plantations. This can mean good or bad news, depending on the type of plantations it is willing to promote. The country studies provide useful -though incomplete- information on the issue, which we believe the Bank should use as a starting point for its own research on the positive and negative impacts of different types of plantations. It appears clearly that large-scale monoculture tree plantations should not be promoted, given their negative environmental impacts and their few positive social effects.

Logging is one of the most important direct causes of the accelerated loss of tropical forests. However, macroeconomic strategies implemented by Southern countries' governments under the pressure of powerful actors such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) provide an even stronger incentive for increasing unsustainable logging practices. Cameroon is but one of many examples showing the impacts of such policies on the disappearing rainforests.

Forests in Cameroon are being destroyed at an alarming rate, due to the high prices of some types of precious wood in the international market, to the weight of the country's external debt and to the collusion of some government officials and forestry companies, especially French (see WRM Bulletin 4).

International "aid for development" is a major cause of forest destruction in many countries. This is exemplified in the case of Cameroon by the European Union, which plans to give a 55 million ECU grant to the government for road projects in the Southern region of the country. Cameroon has not explained which roads are to be built or rehabilitated and no environmental impact assessment studies have been carried out for these projects.

The use of Cameroon’s forests is oriented to the logic of private accumulation and economic interests, regardless of the interests of the Pygmy population that depends on those forests for their survival. Forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate, due to the high prices of some types of wood in the international market, to the weight of the country’s external debt and to the collusion of government officials and international forestry companies.

An international consortium consisting of Exxon, Shell and ELF is planning a multi-billion dollar oil exploitation project that will involve territories of Chad and Cameroon. It is feared that the project brings with it very serious environmental and social risks that may create another Ogoniland, Nigeria's oil-producing region marked by environmental devastation and brutal Human Rights violations. The project plans the development of the Doba oil-fields in southern Chad, and a 600 mile pipeline through Cameroon to transport oil to an Atlantic port for its export.