Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to 1,000,000 CFA francs or imprisonment from one to six months or both fines
shall be applied for non-compliance. Meanwhile Section 14 of the law prohibits
anyone from setting fire to state forest or lighting fire that may cause damage to
the vegetation without prior authorization. Any offender risks a fine of 50,000 to
200,000 CFA francs or imprisonment of up to 20 days or both.
16.10 Other Forest Sustainability Initiatives
16.10.1 Zoning Plan Strategy
In the face of continuous strife in warding off major threats to the rich tropical for-
ests, Cameroon is pursuing a zoning plan strategy. The strategy aims at bolstering
an expected 30% of the national territory as permanent forest estate. This is a good
idea because each year 75-95,000 hectares of forest are lost to agriculture alone.
Also, fuelwood demand is expected to increase coupled with a population growth
rate of about 3%. Targeted by this strategy are the production forests, the desig-
nated locations for active logging concessions. For example, the land use planning
exercise which covers the 14 million hectares of the forested southern part of
Cameroon of which inventory data are already available is a means of ensuring
that enough forests are conserved and well managed. The area now under perma-
nent forest estate is about 13% of the national territory (Ndenecho 2005; Essama-
Nssah et al. 2002; Essama-Nassah and Gockowski 2000; Besong and Ngwasiri
1995), though Tesi (2004) contends that this is merely on paper.
16.10.2 Agricultural Research/ Personnel Training
Although the government took certain measures restricting some forest areas from
the population, thanks to Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and Dutch (DGIS)
grants obtained in 1995 to help in the protection of the country's biodiversity, it
registered little success. Moreover, the government stepped up its agricultural re-
search through a National Agricultural Research Project which was made possible
by funds from donor agencies like the World Bank, GTZ and ODA. This project
which involved some of the country's leading research institutes, like IRA and
IRZV, aimed at increasing the productivity and incomes of small-scale agricul-
tural producers through technology creation and transfer and ran effectively from
1988 to 1993.
Similarly, a national training and agricultural extension programme began in
1997. It employed 2,394 personnel. With the increased mobility of the extension
agents following the distribution of motorcycles, a good number of farmers were
reached. These measures enhanced crop productivity while at the same time re-
ducing deforestation for agricultural purposes. A major setback of this project was
organizational deficiencies such as lack of qualified technicians, especially
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