Cameroon : Data

Transparency norms

There is a clear legal obligation to provide allow access to information to citizens. The 1996 Constitution refers to the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights, stating that “Everyone has the right to information”. But there is no mechanism for ensuring effective implementation, by clarifying the obligations of government officials with this regards. Read more...

Legal standing

Communities have legal standing, but in two conditions :
• On land rights issues, in case they have a collective land title
• On other issues, if they are registered as a legal entity
• In these two cases, their legal standing only applies to the specific purpose for which they are established.
NGOs also have standing formally recognize by the 1996 law governing Environmental Management. But it’s only limited to environmental issues, and the Decree organizing the implementation of this right has never been published. So the legal recognition exists, but cannot be enjoyed by civil society organizations. Read more...

Forest legal framework

The legal and policy framework exist, but presents three major weaknesses in term of organization of access to information:
• Not all the guidelines for its implementation were passed by the Government
• Most documents only exist in French, not in English
• The volume and complexity of the documents makes it difficult to community members
• to understand the legal regime of forest, even if they had access to them. Read more...

Transparent access to decision-making

There is no tradition of civil society participation in decision-making on issues relevant for the management of forests. But there have been an effort of the Ministry to involve civil society organizations in Government-run processes (revision of the Manual of procedures for community forestry, negotiation of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement, ongoing revision of the forestry law.
Two challenges remain to the transparent access to decision making:
• the poor organization of the civil society
• the lack of mechanism for organizing citizens’ participation in decision making processes Read more...

Tenure and land use

All the forest land is under clear legal ownership: they are either State property or property of Municipality, acquired through a devolution process from the State. This legal regime is however contested by communities, who claim ownership on all the forest land and resources in the country. Read more...

Allocation of permits / user rights

Improved transparency was one of the objectives of the 1994 forestry law in Cameroon. This goal was translated in the law through the generalization of the bidding process as the tool for the allocation of concessions and “ventes de coupe”. The first rounds of allocation had proven the weaknesses of transparency in the process, with some companies receiving the concessions or ventes de coupe without deserving them. Small logging titles which were a major source of controversy in the past few years because of their contribution to illegal logging will now be granted by a commission bringing together representatives of various ministries.
There are still some commercial rights allocated outside of a public and transparent system, especially those aiming at commercial use of non timber forest products and the wildlife. Land concessions leading to conversion of the forest are also granted out of any transparent process, and information is only made available when the deal is concluded.
So far, there is no regulation organizing access to ecotourism or environmental services, including carbon. Read more...

Logging operations

Information on logging locations is usually published in a public notice, but not always at the local level. Though resident populations are not consulted as regards the location of logging titles, they may have an influence on its boundaries. Management plans are not made available to communities or citizens. Read more...

Extraction of other forest products

The lack of enforcement texts is an issue for the management of non-timber forest products. The matter relating to wildlife is slightly different since professional hunting areas are well defined and made public. Read more...

Environmental services

Permits for environmental services do not yet exist in Cameroon. Read more...

Cultural services

Permits for tourism/ecotourism are granted by the Ministry of Tourism. Neighbouring communities are informed after the permit allocation. Read more...

Extra-sectoral activities affecting forests

Forest is exposed to threats from non forest activities. In most cases, decisions about the allocation of mining and land concessions are not transparent, in the sense that they are not made public before the final decision. Concerning large infrastructure the information about their planning is often publicly known, but not the detailed plans. All those projects are normally subjected to the preparation of an environmental impact assessment, prior to the beginning of their activities, except for mining operations, where the EIA is due after the exploration phase, before the beginning of exploitation.
All those operations are likely to contribute to the destruction of the forest, at least because they are not likely to comply with forest management plans (where applicable), and will lead to clear cutting. Read more...

Fiscal regime: tax collection and redistribution

The forest law and the Finance Law do provide for taxes, royalties, or other any other benefits to be collected from permit holders and given to neighbouring communities. It is worth mentioning that reference is not explicitly made to “affected communities” but it is assumed that “neighbouring communities are certainly targeted because they are the ones likely to be directly affected by the adverse effects of logging activities. To this effect, Section 68 (2) of the Forest Law states “For the development of neighbouring village communities of certain communal forests under exploitation, part of the proceeds from the sale of forest products shall be reserved for the said communities under conditions laid down by decree.”
Communities are also entitled to the Annual forest Royalties assessed on the basis of the surface area; the rate is fixed by the Finance Law. In addition, communities are entitled to the contribution to the execution of social amenities
The regulation on this contribution has never been passed but in practice, permit holders pay 1000 Fcfa per cubic meter of harvested timber. Read more...

Forest law enforcement

Citizens are encouraged to denounce illegal activities in the forest sector. Information in illegal practices are to be provided to the prosecutor. In the case of activities in the forest sector, information are to be provided to officials in MINFOF. There is no formal procedure for denunciation,, and communities referred to cases where denunciation did not lead to any formal investigation or sanction. Read more...

'Anti-transparency' norms

Generally speaking, there is a lack of transparency standards. And where some do exist, they have no enforcement order, therefore this gap in the law stops them from being implemented. This has been the case for instance with the implementation of article 66 of the Constitution which compels people with a public position to draw up a list of their assets public – to this day, this has been inadequately enforced. Read more...

Publications

The Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife publishes some information on a regular basis (information on the activities of the Ministry, statistics, list of pending cases of law violations, etc.). It has no system in place for disseminating information or responding to requests about access to information. Read more...