The Cameroon government is intensifying efforts against illegal forest exploitation in the country with multiplication of heavy sanctions against defaulters. The National Control Brigade for Control Operations of the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife has published its register of litigations for the first quarter of 2016. The report reveals that four logging companies (SITAF, SCDC, South & FILS, SOFIE), had their licenses temporarily suspended, 35 others warned, with over 54.2 million FCFA generated as fines from illegal forestry activities. The companies are accused of fraudulent forest exploitation and the non-respect of provisions. Some 10 companies also had their exploitation licenses suspended. They were Horizon Bois, Martial & Cie, Atlas Commercial, FC PATRUD, FC NKADA KPABO de DONGOGO, FC WOUSS, FC HE KEN MBOUMBOU, FC forêt communautaire and FC GIC Ne KIDONG. The figures were presented to the press in Yaounde on August 4, 2016. The register is published at the end of each quarter and signed by Wildlife and Forestry Minister. It presents illegal forest exploitation offences with sanctions meted on erring companies. Two registers have been published this year. It emerged that after consulting with national controllers who records of offence statements and data collected from external services, as well as the opinion of the legal unit of the Ministry. The sanctions were part of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement that binds Cameroon and the European Union, with focus on addressing illegal logging to improve forest governance and promoting trade in legal timber products to EU markets. The Head of the National Control Brigade for Control Operations, Ella Ondoua Ambroise Rodrigue, said the suspensions would be lifted if the logging companies paid fines levied on them. It is not the first time that the sledge hammer of the ministry of forestry and wildlife is falling on defaulters in the forestry sector

Kenya needs Sh1.8 trillion (USD18 Billion) to implement climate change programmes for the remaining period up to 2030, according to the Environment Ministry.In the short term, the country requires Sh495 billion for the same activities for the next five years.Environment Cabinet Secretary Prof Judi Wakhungu revealed this when she launched the Kenya Second National Communication Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Nairobi.Noting that climate change is the most serious environmental challenge facing the world today, the CS said the Government has taken measures to secure the country's development against the risks and impacts of climate change."Kenya is highly vulnerable to climate change ad Government is mobilising and leveraging resources to strengthen resilience and abet green house gas emissions. Government has enacted Climate Change Act, 2016 which provides a regulatory framework for enhanced response to achieve low carbon climate resilient development," Ms Wakhungu said.She added that other policy measures to achieve a green economy are the National Climate Change Action Plan 2013-2017, Climate Change Response Strategy 2010 and Environmental Management and Coordination Act CAP 387.The CS observed that Government has identified nine areas where urgent mitigation actions should be undertaken using the billions of shillings required.Among the nine are restoration of forests and degraded lands, developing an additional 2,275 megawatts of geothermal energy, restoration of degraded forests, encouraging Kenyans to use improved cookstoves and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and agroforestry.Others include bus rapid transit and light rail corridors, develop greenhouse gas inventory and improvement of emissions data, measuring, reporting on and monitoring forestry emissions and sinks and mainstreaming of low-carbon development options into planning processes.To achieve the above, Government needs to undertake a programme of work to restore forests on 960,000 hectares up to 2030 including dryland forest restoration activities, developing, testing and application of compensation and benefits-sharing mechanisms and develop an additional 2,275 MW of geothermal capacity by 2030 through a support programme aimed at encouraging private sector investment.The country also needs to undertake a programme of work to replant forests on 240,000 hectares of land that were previously forests, increase awareness of improved cooking practices, undertaking pilot initiatives which promote the use of LPG, increasing awareness of stove quality, increasing access to soft loans, building capacity of stove producers, and improving access to testing facilities. The report also recommends converting 281,000 hectares of existing arable cropland and grazing land that have medium or high agricultural potential to agroforestry and implement an extensive mass transit system for greater Nairobi, based predominantly on bus rapid transit corridors complemented by a few Light Rail Transit corridors as other mitigation measures.Others include developing a national forest inventory, forest reference scenario, and a monitoring and reporting system that allows for transparent accounting of emissions and removals in the forestry and land-use sectors. "Kenya's population projected to reach 17.64 million in 2017, resides in the rural areas and relies predominantly on an ever-degrading environment and scarce natural resources for their livelihoods. However this situation is changing with an increase in…

IDENAU, Cameroon — It’s 9 p.m. and fish trader Mammy Joan Dione, 58, is working hard with her two daughters to dry a day’s catch of fish. Business in this renowned Central African fishing port is on the uptick thanks to the recent installation of solar-powered ovens to dry the fish, preventing what used to be massive spoilage from a lack of energy for preservation. “We can now dry our fish even in the night with the use of solar ovens,” says Dione, whose business is driven by customers from big cities in Cameroon and neighbouring Nigeria and Gabon. “We now work day and night to meet the high demand and this has significantly increased our family income. We can also preserve fresh fish in refrigerators thanks to the availability of electricity,” she adds. With the aid of fans installed inside the dryer, the heat is evenly circulated, making it possible to dry over 400 kilograms of fish in about six hours — a fraction of the time used in the past for smoking. Some ten fishing groups in Idenau and nearby Batoke in this coastal region were offered two solar energy fish-drying ovens each in February 2015 by the Cameroon contingent of the African Resource Group (ARG-CAM) working in collaboration with the Limbe city council — part of a wider drive to expand renewables like solar across the country. What is happening here, legislators promise, is just the beginning.Joan Dione’s daughter Sharon Dione, 23, quickly switches on the lights in the store room where they have stocked over 25 baskets of dried fish ready for market. In the past, drying such a significant quantity of fish in a day was impossible. They instead relied on smoking the fish with wood from a nearby mangrove forest, which limited their production to less than five baskets a day. “The process of using wood energy was so difficult, emitting smoke that was dangerous to our health,” says Sharon Dione. “The arrival of solar energy and solar drying ovens here has changed everything.” The need to boost renewables in CameroonCameroon is endowed with an abundance of oil, gas and hydropower, but, in 2013, only 18 per cent of the over 22 million population had access to a reliable energy source, a rate experts said is low for Africa. Yet the country has abundant sunshine and a lot of wind in the northern and western regions, which holds great potential for solar energy and wind turbines. More than 80 per cent of the country’s electricity comes from hydropower, but the government is also encouraging the use of other renewable sources, with solar energy gaining ground. Cameroon will increasingly rely on renewable energy as it moves toward its goal of “economic emergence” by 2035, the government announced in May 2015.And the country will need the electricity. As with much of Africa (according to the International Energy Agency), a shift is well underway from a previously rural society to modern urban settlements. More people will be…