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Initiatives · Cameroon Forests · Gabon Forests · Publications & Maps · News
WRI, Cameroon Ink Pact to Monitor Forests, Curb Illegal Logging. Read the press release and view pictures of the signing here. Read the full agreement between GFW and the Government of Cameroon here (591KB PDF, in French). Cameroon Forests
Located in the Gulf of Guinea, Cameroon lies at the intersection of West Africa and Central Africa. The north of Cameroon is dry and contains vast savannas, whereas the south is home to dense tropical forest. Ecologically and culturally, Cameroon is extremely rich. It contains more than 200 ethnic groups, and a particularly high biodiversity, especially in terms of its flora. However, Cameroon's environment faces real and urgent threats. The forests of Cameroon underwent an extensive conversion over the last decades. Large areas have become agricultural lands, and logging concessions are now found in the heart of intact forests in the eastern part of the country. Cameroon developed new and progressive forestry legislation in the mid-1990s and worked with other Central African countries—Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo—to raise forestry on the regional political agenda. In spite of some recent improvements, illegal logging and corruption continue to result in environmental degradation, loss of revenue to the government, and resource conflicts.
Global Forest Watch works with local organizations in Cameroon to collect and distribute information on forest development. Increased public access to information on forests and forest development holds public officials and forestry accountable and fosters better management of forest resources. Global Forest Watch Cameroon published its first report in 2000: An Overview of Logging in Cameroon, which provides maps and data on forests and logging. It was later updated —1999-2000 Allocation of Logging Permits in Cameroon: Fine-Tuning Central Africa's First Auction System. Future plans include further updates on forest development, profiles of logging companies, and exploring the potential of satellite imagery to detect illegal logging. Our products, and especially this website, aim at increasing the transparency of information available on forests. Using our Data Warehouse you can download, and manipulate for your own analyses, the geographical data (GIS layers) we possess. You can also create your own maps using our Interactive Map Server and send us your comments.
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