About TBI Cameroon

Cameroon is a forest-rich country with a rain forest zone extending over 22.5 million ha. It is also a country where decentralisation of forest management has proceeded to an advanced degree. The government’s strategy for forest use is set out in the 1994 Forest Law and was subsequently elaborated in the Forest and Environmental Sector Plan (PSFE Programme Sectoriel Forêt en Environnement). Cameroon’s forest sector strategy gives priority to poverty reduction as formulated in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, which in turn is linked to the Millennium Development Goals .

In this context, and building on the earlier programme during 1994 - 2003, TBI organised a country programme which lasted from 2008 - 2011. It focused on the following themes:

1. Community forestry - Cameroon has almost fifteen years of experience with community and council forestry. This experience provided the opportunity to evaluate and document its impacts so that other countries in the region can learn from it. The results of the study were reported in this publication.
2. Small-scale forestry and local timber markets - Cameroon’s roundwood production equals about 4 million m³ per year. About half is produced by industrial operators (formal sector) and the other half by small-scale operators (informal sector) who principally supply the local market with cheap lumber. TBI together with CIFOR and IITA studied the dynamics of the domestic market in the South West Region looking for options how best to regulate it in a sustainable way.
3. Forest landscape planning - Cameroon aims to become a middle income country by the year 2035 through large-scale mining, agricultural and infrastructural developments. The Eastern Region with its high conservation value is one of the focus zones of these developments . The GEF-sponsored TRIDOM project, which started late 2008, aims at the conservation of trans-boundary biodiversity in the Dja – Odzala - Minkebe (TRIDOM) zone in Gabon, Republic of Congo and Cameroon. It comprises nine protected areas, a high concentration of industrial logging concessions and planned large-scale mineral mining sites. TBI and partners look how best to mitigate the effects of large-scale infrastructural developments on forests and livelihoods.
4. Financial mechanisms for sustainable management - In recent years, the question of how to broaden and diversify the financial basis for sustainable forest management (SFM) has received major attention. In Cameroon a diminishing donor involvement in the forest sector has been observed. A rapid assessment of existing financial mechanisms for SFM in Cameroon provided a knowledge and capacity basis for drafting the outline of a National Strategy for Forest Financing for Cameroon.