Timber exploitation: Ministry of Forestry presents new code

A 58 paged document which will serve as a working tool for Forest Exploiters has been presented in Yaounde this 6th October 2016.

The presentation follows a Ministerial Order signed by Mr. Ngole Philip Ngwese on Tuesday 4th October 2016.

Accordingly, each tree hence forth will be identified by a reference code known as geo-referencing.

This implies that every tree will be localized identified and given a code before it is felled.

The elaboration of the document is in response to the wanton destruction of Cameroon’s forest and the activities of illegal forest exploiters.

The Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife realized that unlicensed exploiters frequently cut trees and even the licensed exploiters sometimes in complicity with Local Administrative Authorities disregard the guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife.

It is therefore to put order in a sector that has come under sharp criticisms from environmentalists that this document which has been in process since 2012 has been elaborated.

Forest exploiters present during the occasion saluted this qualitative leap to environmental protection hoping that shareholders respects laid down norms.

Presiding over the forest exploitation code, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Forestry and Wild Life Koulsoumi Ahadji urged stakeholders to avail themselves with the new rules in order not to be found guilty of illegal logging.