Gov’t urged to re-instate Forest RoyaltiesBy Nwo- Fuanya in Limbe

By Nwo- Fuanya in Limbe
The government of Cameroon has been challenged to re-instate the 10% forest royalties that until 2015 was paid directly to timber producing communities.
    This was a major outcome of a recent meeting in Limbe organized by the Community and Forest Platform, a civil society network. It was aimed to evaluate forest governance in Cameroon. Participants at the meeting expressed concerns about the removal of the 10% forest royalties for communities from the 2015 state budget, saying that it is not only unfair but has compounded the difficulties faced by forest communities across the country.
    The over 40 participants comprising members of the Community and Forest Platform CFP and  members of indigenous forest communities from the East, Centre South and South West regions also evaluated progress made in forest governance in Cameroon within the framework of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement/Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade, VPA/FLEGT.
    The Director of the Centre For Assistance to Justice and Animation for Development, CAJAD, Bathelemy Tchepnang, one of the organizers of the event, said seven months into the putting in place of the action plan of the CFP, it is important to carry out a self-evaluation and restate the priority actions for the coming months given the current challenges of forest governance in Cameroon .
    He said the Limbe workshop is aimed to do a self-evaluation of activities carried out by CFP in the last semester, reiterate the position of the CFP with regards to the credibility of the VPA, the participation of the civil society in the VPA/FLEGT process over the past few months and also present a final version of the methodological guide for the participatory follow up and impact assessment of the VPA, as well as identify best practices in forest management, be it eradication, reduction or mitigation of the negative impacts by proposing and discussing practical strategies for the involvement of civil society in the formal process to monitor the impact of the VPA.

    Dominic Ngwese of Nature Cameroon explained that the Cameroon government committed itself to the FLEGT process by signing a Voluntary Partnership Agreement VPA with the European Union in 2010, to fight illegal logging and trade.
    He said the VPA/FLEGT initiative has raised hopes and expectations in the forest sector, which before now was characterized by wanton destruction, lack of collaboration between different stakeholders, the perpetuation of illegal logging and all kinds of negative effects in terms of loss of biodiversity and local and indigenous communities livelihoods as well as loss of significant revenue to the state.
    “The CFP by engaging in the process expects a significant improvement in transparency in the forest sector, effective implementation of the legal frameworks applicable to the forest sector, the effective participation of communities and civil society organizations in forest management and legal reforms that would provide better opportunity to secure substantial customary rights of forest communities and strengthen governance,” Ngwese said, noting that the main concern here is the capacity of the VPA/FLEGT to bring behavioral change among actors in the forest sector.