Some 244 farmers from Bangema local forest community in the Southwest region of Cameroon have taken court action against SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon PLC (SGSOC), a palm oil developer in Cameroon, reports Greenpeace Africa. The farmers say their communities have been affected by the large-scale palm oil plantation projects developed by the international agro-industry, calling on the Court of First Instance in Bangem, Southwest Cameroon, to render justice.
Hearing on the matter has been set for 9 November, reports Greenpeace Africa.
Greenpeace Africa is among the many civil society organizations fighting against land rights and forest conservation abuse in local communities in Cameroon and other parts in Africa . They have in this light championed campaigns to stop SGSOC from developing palm trees in the ecologically sensitive region of the Southwest region of Cameroon.
In a press release of 4th October, 2016,Green Peace says two collective complaints involving 244 farmers were filed against SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon (SGSOC) on 27 September for trespass to land. 231 of these farmers from the village of Nguti, are demanding that SGSOC respect a 5km buffer zone around their farmlands. However, the concession area demarcated by SGSOC encroaches on many farms in the forest areas around Nguti, showing no respect for the buffer zone, says Greenpeace.
“How are we going to live if SGSOC takes our farms? How are we going to eat? I have no other means. I don’t want money, because who knows for how many years it will last? It won’t help my children and grandchildren, but my farm will, as I have crops every year,” said Susan Tah Agbo, who takes care of 24 people thanks to her 20 hectares (49 acres) of farmland.
In Babensi II, 13 farmers also went to court as their lands have been seized by SGSOC, without any consultation or prior agreement, writes Greenpeace Africa. “One day, I came to my farm, and I found that they had bulldozed everything. I knew I was going to develop this place to earn my living and when I die, my children will remain there, but today, I have no place. We are all crying here, and we don’t know how we can be rescued”, said Adolf Ngbe Ebong, a 62-year-old retired policeman.
SGSOC, the Cameroonian company which holds a concession of approximately 20,000 hectares for palm oil plantation development, was owned by the US-based company Herakles Farms until 2015. Since 2009, when the company settled in Cameroon, Greenpeace Africa and national and international NGOs have released numerous documents based on investigations into the many misdeeds of SGSOC.
“SGSOC activities are tainted with illegalities. Not only does their establishment convention with the Cameroonian government violate the law, but they also cleared the forest without a permit, intimidated several traditional chiefs and used bribery and promises which are yet to be realized to obtain local authorities’ favors”, said Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue, Greenpeace Africa forest campaigner.
The provisional land lease granted via a presidential decree in November 2013 to SGSOC expires this November. A coalition of several NGOs, of which Greenpeace is a part, today launched a petition in Cameroon and internationally, to ask the Cameroonian government not to extend or to renew it.
“SGSOC violated the law many times and didn’t fulfill the numerous promises they made to the communities, such as the building of roads and schools, so one can’t think how they could improve. Cameroon needs development, but always while protecting local communities and the significant biodiversity that surrounds them. SGSOC is a destructive project, located in between four protected areas, so it must end,” added Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue.
The project site is located in the Guinean forest of West Africa Biodiversity Hotspot, which shelters 1,800 endemic species of vascular plants and an extraordinary diversity of the world’s top species priorities for primate conservation.
Les pays côtiers africains sont confrontés aux différents fléaux maritimes qui contribuent au ralentissement de leur développement économique. Ces fléaux sont la piraterie maritime, la pêche INN, la migration clandestine, la dégradation de l’environnement marin et côtier et les trafics illicites en tous genres. Que doit-on faire pour réussir à éradiquer efficacement ces fléaux des eaux africaines et donner plus d’opportunité et de possibilité aux économies émergentes des Etats Africains ?
C’est bien en ces réponses que réside tout le mérite du sommet extraordinaire de l’Union Africaine sur la sécurité et la sûreté Maritimes qui aura lieu du 10 au 15 Octobre 2016 à Lomé au Togo.
J-15, tous les acteurs de la vie socio politique se mobilisent et mutualisent leur force pour la bonne réussite de ce sommet d’où sortira une charte pour protéger les eaux africaines.
Pour donner plus de chance de réussite à ce sommet, le Haut Conseil pour la Mer et la Haute Autorité de l’Audio Visuel et de la Communication ont jugé utile d’informer et de former les hommes du quatrièmes pouvoir sur les enjeux et défis de cette problématique ce jour à Lomé.
« Contribution des professionnels de la communication dans la lutte pour la sécurité et la sûreté maritimes et le développement en Afrique » c’est le thème autour duquel les médias venus de toutes les régions du Togo ont eu à se plancher ce matin à Lomé .
Il s’agit entre autres d’amener les journalistes togolais des medias publics et privés à comprendre la nécessité de leur implication dans la lutte contre l’insécurité maritime ; maitriser les terminologies appropriées sur la thématique de la sécurité et de sûreté maritimes.
LOME, Togo (PAMACC News) - When logging concessions are issued with very limited terms, they are often spotlighted by conservationists as harbingers of ecological harm to come. Another serious threat is the existence of logging roads that have continued to damage the environment and forest even after the logging stops.
A new study by forest experts has found out that logging, both legal and illegal, remains a lucrative business that has contributed to the rapid shrinking of Africa’s rainforests and woodlands.
According to Ajewole Opeyemi Isaac of the department of forest resource management of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, the challenges associated with logging in the tropical rainforest in West and Central Africa are the root cause of the rapid depletion of forest resources in these regions.
Key among these challenges is bad governance with limited term timber concessions that breeds corrupt practices, poor planning and management.
“Limited-term timber concessions encourages short-term resource depletion, and poor forest planning and management, corruption which makes existing forestry laws nearly unenforceable,” Ajewole said at the presentation of his research paper during the African Forest Forum in Lome-Togo September 27, 2016.
He said there was lack of transparency in commercial transactions with corrupt officials granting concessions to cronies without regard for the environment or consideration of local people.
The study also highlighted the construction of logging roads to reach forest resources as destructive factor to the ecology in its own rights.
“Logging roads have long term destruction of forest as it encourages settlement of previously inaccessible forest lands by speculators, land developers and poor farmers,” he said.
Other studies experts say have found out that along these logging roads and landing areas, the soil increasingly becomes more dense and compact with slower water infiltration than in the surrounding, untouched areas of the forest.
According to Stephen Anderson, a professor of soil science at the University of Missouri and coauthor of the study published in Geoderma and conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri in the U.S, “This can cause many environmental challenges in forests because dense soil prevents rainwater from soaking in, triggering run off and causing erosion. This erosion can carry fertile topsoil away from forests, which enters streams and makes it difficult for those forests being logged to regenerate with new growth as well as polluting surface water resources.”
The repercussions, the study says can last far longer than the logging itself. The researchers found that logging roads and log landing areas were significantly denser and less able to absorb water four years after timber harvesting had ended. This can detrimentally affect the ability of logged forests to regenerate, the study revealed.
Researchers at the African Forest Forum agreed that logging roads around the in many countries in the continent are piercing farther and farther into once-untouched forest in the quest for timber.
“Logging roads are a major threat and cause for concern,” noted Nganje Martin, consultant with the African Forest Forum. The scenario is the same in Africa just like other forest areas in the world he pointed.
Satellite images by the Monitoring Amazon Andean Project, MAAP for example, found new logging roads snaking through primary Amazon rainforest in the Ucayali region of Peru. Other findings from MAAP include illegal logging roads through protected areas.
In the Republic of Congo, the forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch shows a large network of logging roads spreading through Congo Basin forest over the past few years.
The multiplication of such roads experts say are caused by illegal logging triggered by poverty, weak governance and absence of sustainable forest management.
The developments the experts say have devastating consequences such as loss or degradation of forests resulting in the loss of habitats and biodiversity, significant loss of government revenue, loss of future sources of employment and export earnings.
The African Forest Forum accordingly seeks to generate and share knowledge and information through partnerships in ways that will provide inputs into policy options and capacity building efforts in order to improve forest management in a manner that better addresses poverty eradication and environmental protection in Africa.
LOME, Togo (PAMACC News) - When logging concessions are issued with very limited terms, they are often spotlighted by conservationists as harbingers of ecological harm to come. Another serious threat is the existence of logging roads that have continued to damage the environment and forest even after the logging stops.
A new study by forest experts has found out that logging, both legal and illegal, remains a lucrative business that has contributed to the rapid shrinking of Africa’s rainforests and woodlands.
According to Ajewole Opeyemi Isaac of the department of forest resource management of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, the challenges associated with logging in the tropical rainforest in West and Central Africa are the root cause of the rapid depletion of forest resources in these regions.
Key among these challenges is bad governance with limited term timber concessions that breeds corrupt practices, poor planning and management.
“Limited-term timber concessions encourages short-term resource depletion, and poor forest planning and management, corruption which makes existing forestry laws nearly unenforceable,” Ajewole said at the presentation of his research paper during the African Forest Forum in Lome-Togo September 27, 2016.
He said there was lack of transparency in commercial transactions with corrupt officials granting concessions to cronies without regard for the environment or consideration of local people.
The study also highlighted the construction of logging roads to reach forest resources as destructive factor to the ecology in its own rights.
“Logging roads have long term destruction of forest as it encourages settlement of previously inaccessible forest lands by speculators, land developers and poor farmers,” he said.
Other studies experts say have found out that along these logging roads and landing areas, the soil increasingly becomes more dense and compact with slower water infiltration than in the surrounding, untouched areas of the forest.
According to Stephen Anderson, a professor of soil science at the University of Missouri and coauthor of the study published in Geoderma and conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri in the U.S, “This can cause many environmental challenges in forests because dense soil prevents rainwater from soaking in, triggering run off and causing erosion. This erosion can carry fertile topsoil away from forests, which enters streams and makes it difficult for those forests being logged to regenerate with new growth as well as polluting surface water resources.”
The repercussions, the study says can last far longer than the logging itself. The researchers found that logging roads and log landing areas were significantly denser and less able to absorb water four years after timber harvesting had ended. This can detrimentally affect the ability of logged forests to regenerate, the study revealed.
Researchers at the African Forest Forum agreed that logging roads around the in many countries in the continent are piercing farther and farther into once-untouched forest in the quest for timber.
“Logging roads are a major threat and cause for concern,” noted Nganje Martin, consultant with the African Forest Forum. The scenario is the same in Africa just like other forest areas in the world he pointed.
Satellite images by the Monitoring Amazon Andean Project, MAAP for example, found new logging roads snaking through primary Amazon rainforest in the Ucayali region of Peru. Other findings from MAAP include illegal logging roads through protected areas.
In the Republic of Congo, the forest monitoring platform Global Forest Watch shows a large network of logging roads spreading through Congo Basin forest over the past few years.
The multiplication of such roads experts say are caused by illegal logging triggered by poverty, weak governance and absence of sustainable forest management.
The developments the experts say have devastating consequences such as loss or degradation of forests resulting in the loss of habitats and biodiversity, significant loss of government revenue, loss of future sources of employment and export earnings.
The African Forest Forum accordingly seeks to generate and share knowledge and information through partnerships in ways that will provide inputs into policy options and capacity building efforts in order to improve forest management in a manner that better addresses poverty eradication and environmental protection in Africa.
