Private road sparks fears for Cameroon's Ebo Forest
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- 16 Aug 2022
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Since March, bulldozers have opened around 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, of dirt road running north from the village of Kopongo in Cameroon across a forestry concession and into the heart of Ebo Forest. A group calling itself the Ebo Forest Development Committee (CDFE) is behind the project, and says the road is needed to connect villages around Ebo — communities displaced from the forest proper a generation ago — and stimulate the local economy. Conservationists say the road will serve only to expose the forest to illegal logging. The ministry of forestry purports to know nothing about the entire project.
Ebo Forest covers 200,000 hectares (490,000 acres) of biodiverse lowland and montane forest in southwestern Cameroon. It’s home to many threatened species, including forest elephants, gorillas and a population of Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees — of particular interest to researchers because of their use of sticks to harvest termites’ nests and stones as tools to crack nuts open. People living in the areas surrounding the forest rely on it for food, fuel, and herbs.
The CDFE, whose members are drawn from the ranks of local politicians and businessmen, held a ceremony to launch their project in the village of Ndokbaembi in May. In a letter announcing the launch, CDFE executive president Samuel Dieudonné Moth, who is also a member of parliament for Nkam division, said the group had approached undisclosed “private operators” to build the road. A local news outlet, Journal du Cameroun, reported that the road is being built by a logging company.
Moth wrote that the road was “very important and symbolic for the Banen people” who were expelled from Ebo Forest beginning in the late 1950s by colonial authorities during Cameroon’s struggle for independence. Reached by phone, Moth told Mongabay that the CDFE will forge ahead with the road project “even if it means digging it with our hands,” but did not respond to further questions.
May’s launch was also attended by the prefects, or centrally appointed heads, of Sanaga-Maritime and Nkam divisions, where Ebo is located. Journal du Cameroun quoted Nkam’s prefect, Che Patrick Ngwashi, as saying “This road represents development. It will allow populations displaced from their home 60 years ago to return.” He added that “this must not become an open door for uncontrolled logging or poaching.”
But conservationists — and, they say, many Banen in the 40 communities in the area — fear this is precisely what will happen.
In an open letter sent to diplomatic missions including those of the EU and the U.S., and copied to the prime minister of Cameroon, conservation organizations, including the Center for Environment & Development (the Cameroon member of Friends of the Earth), Friends of the Earth Netherlands, Greenpeace Africa, and Green Development Advocates, a Cameroonian organization which works with forest communities on sustainable development, said the road exposes the forest to further illegal logging and settlement while failing to connect existing villages and support local livelihoods. Read More...
