"What about Sustainable Development"

Ajabji on the internet

2010-02-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.gvi.co.uk/projects/africa/cameroon/gorillas-survey-project-cameroon/further-information/leaders

http://www.aauwvt.org/BennSep09web.pdf

http://www.entrepreneurnewsonline.com/2008/04/stella-ajabji-c.html

http://www.cidrcam.org/our_team

Effects of Rising Prices of Basic Household Commodities on Women in Cameroon: Policy Implication to sustainable development.

2010-02-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Effects of Rising Prices of Basic Household Commodities on Women in Cameroon: Policy Implication to sustainable development.

1.0 Introduction
Cameroon on like the rest of the world has experience a constant rise in prices of basic household commodities since the year 2000, In 2008, citizens where tied of these rise and reacted on it with a public riot that ended up losing lives of Cameroonian. This rise has greatly affected the lives of women and children as they remain at the lower ladder of the societies. In 80% of Cameroonian households, women are in charge of the functioning of the household: cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children. It is the responsibilities of the women to ensure that children/husband have food. In most cases, especially in rural communities the men do not care if the children are well fed or not, all the care is their meal. Men generally have between 2-5wives, with an average of 10children, when one woman is unable to provide food, they other provide. Most urban women manage their households from meager income provided by their husbands and rural women from the sales of excess farm food stuff. With this income remaining constant, prices have doubled. This has resulted to poor feeding habits in most household, insufficient food/balance diet for children and the mother as well as general poor health for women and malnutrition for children. This paper will make a critically analysis of the causes of rising prices of basic household commodities in Cameroon and its consequences, as well as policy implications by the government Cameroon in achieving sustainable economic growth.
2.0 Household structure and leadership in Cameroon
2.1 Cameroon population structure
According to the (CIA World Fact book, 2009) “the population of Cameroon can be fragmented as: 0-14 years: 40.9% (male 3,891,762/female 3,822,870) ; 15-64 years: 55.9% (male 5,298,143/female 5,250,493); 65 years and over: 3.3% (male 283,289/female 332,744) (2009 est.)”. An analysis of the above figures shows that, they are 9,473,194 male and 9,406,107 female making a 50%/50% ratio of male and female in the 2009 Cameroonian population.
2.2 leadership in household structures in Cameroon
In most areas in Cameroon, especially in rural areas women are responsible for feeding their families, they are considered as feeders of their household no matter the size of the household. They grow staple food crops from their farms which they use for feeding the household. Other basic household commodities needed to complement farm food such as salt, soap, oil, fish are also provided by the women from money raise from the sales of extra farm produce in the rural and urban markets. Men in the other hand take care of major household expenditure like children school fees, health and at times clothing for the family during feast days like Christmas. Men are involved in the growing of the cash crops. Among the pastoral populations, men herd the livestock and women process dairy products use for food. . In general, men have higher social status than women. They have more rights with regard to marriage, divorce, and land tenure within most local systems of social organization and more access to government bureaucracy and the courts. However, women may have informal power within households, enforced through their control of subsistence activities and their role as conduits to female ancestors. Even thou women are responsible for providing household food from food stuff gotten from their farms, they do not have access to land for the cultivation of this food. Women have to either get land from their husbands land or rent farm land from other families with excess land. In areas where some women do not have access to enough land, women might end up cultivating very limited land for food, not enough for supplying their household with food stuff.
3.0 Causes and consequences of rise in basic household commodities
3.1. What are basic household commodities in Cameroon?
Basic household commodities in Cameroon are those commodities that can only be gotten from the market by both the rural women and the urban women, that is women who depend on the farm to feed their household and working class women. These basic household commodities in Cameroon are: salt, rice, and kerosene, groundnuts, washing soap, vegetable oil, fish, grains, sugar and a host of other items used by the household which are essential for the functional of that household.
3.1 Causes of price rise in basic household commodities
According to the (Wikipedia website, 2009), 2007–2008 experienced a dramatic increases in world food prices, creating a global crisis and causing political and economical instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations. The increase prices in Cameroon started gradually since 1998, but 2007/2008 had a drastic increase. Prices of these commodities have almost tripled in value, this is especially serious in the rural areas of Cameroon, as goods have to be transported on very bad roads to this areas. The main cause of the increase prices of these basic household commodities can be associated to the increase in oil prices since 1998. According to the Director General of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization in an interview with (BBC, 2007), the price of oil has risen gradually from $20 per barrel in 1998 to $90 per barrel in 2007, this increase in cost has being translated directly to the cost of running machines that produced food such as wheat, sugar etc. Moreover, increase in oil prices has cause farmers to increase the use of nitrogen fertilizers so as to increase their yield, which will translate to increase profit, unfortunately for the farmers; the production of nitrogen fertilizer uses a high proportion of oil. This has resulted to a drastic increase in the prices of fertilizers from an average $100 for 1tone in 1999 to $350 for the same one tone in 2007. For farmers to remain in business, they have no choice than to translate these prices to the prices of the food they produce, resulting to hikes in the prices of basic household communities in the world. This problem however, is addressed in developed countries as the price hikes are not so terrible.
Developing countries, like Cameroon for example suffer from the worse side of the story as they are consumer countries. Their own prices further increase due to the freight cost, the cost of shipping these goods from the developed countries to the developing countries, drastically increases the prices. Basic household commodities in Cameroon are only imported into Cameroon from different countries and increase in oil prices, consequently translated into increase transportation cost and finally, translated to these basic commodities, these has cause the prices of certain goods to increase by 700% since 1998. For example, the price of a kilogram of sugar has increase from 200FCFA to 800FCFA today, rice has increase from 100FCA per kilogram in 1997 to 400FCFA per kilogram today.
3.2 Consequences of rise in basic household commodities
According to the (IFAD website, 2009), Cameroon has attained some success in combating poverty. The first national household survey in 1996 estimated that 51 per cent of the population was living below the poverty line of less than a dollar per day( World Bank standard) , a figure that had fallen to 40 per cent by the time the second household survey was conducted in 2001. But the decline mainly benefited people who live in urban areas, 22.1 per cent of whom are poor, compared to 49.9 per cent of poor people in rural areas of Cameroon. In Cameroon, poverty is fundamentally a rural phenomenon. Women and children are particularly hard-hit: 52 per cent of the people in poor households in Cameroon are women living in rural and urban areas, and half of the members of poor households are under 15 years of age. Among the major causes of poverty in Cameroon, continuous increase in the prices of basic household commodities is a huge contributing factor. This rise in prices, is falling more on the already 52 per cent of people in poor household who are women. Basic income of wage earners has remain the same, yet prices have doubled more than 500%, poor women in rural areas who depend on the sale of farm excesses to purchase additional household commodities earn the same income on what they sell, as they cannot increase the prices of their goods, yet what they buy as basic household commodities has undergone increase in price more than 500%.
The consequences of this act is that, most women are forced to manage their household without or with a very limited level of consumption of these commodities. These effect is very significant on the women because, traditional women eat last after serving their husbands. In this situation women are bound at time to eat food without soup, some will eat without meat as the initial serving when to the husband and children. For the case of income earning household, this problem maybe more drastic, as the household essentially depends on the market for the entire household food consumption.
4.0 Government actions to address problem
For consumer countries like Cameroon, depending on imported goods for a majority of household items, except major food item that can be gotten from the farm will continue to experience this increase in food prices, there is actually no hope for a fall in the prices. The government of Cameroon however in 2008, decided to subsidies the price of fuel so that, in-country transportation of basic household commodities can be cheaper and thus will translate to the fall in prices for the already impoverish citizens, especially the women. With these subsidies in oil prices, most super markets maintained their prices selling at the same rate as they were selling before, this resulted to numerous strikes within the country by poor peasants and those unable to afford the continuous hikes in the prices of basic household commodities. By the end of 2008, the governments of Cameroon launched another policy of recruiting price control agents. The main task of the price control agents being to control prices business offer on basic household commodities, if businesses charge above the stipulated government prices, such businesses will be close down.
5.0 Implication for policy and sustainable economic development
In 2008, after a number of continuous rioting by Cameroonians in all parts of the country, the government decided to enact some policies to address continuous price hikes on basic household commodities: 1) fuel subsidies within Cameroon 2) setting of standard prices and recruitment of Price Control agents 3) Police action on citizens when their actions on demand for government solutions go persistent. An analysis of the policies taken by the government to address the price hikes, starting with fuel subsidies given to companies, this policy was not effective because despite what the government did, individual supplier still did not care about using the subsidies, and with the corrupt nature of the country, consumers were the ones to suffer. On the second policy on setting of standard prices for household commodities and recruitment of price control agents, this was another difficult policy to be implemented by business owners as they complaint of already importing foreign goods before government subsidies on the prices. And finally recruitment of more police force to stop citizen from rioting is just a temporal solution to such a huge problem.
6.0 Conclusion and Policy recommendations for sustainable development
Considering the fact that 52 per cent of the people in poor households in Cameroon are women living in rural and urban areas, and half of this population under 15 years of age,( IFAD Website, 2009), the incident of hikes in prices goes a long way to affect this population most. If the government of Cameroon with it policy makers do not address these problems, it will hinder the country from attending the Millennium Development Goal(MDGs) by 2015, of eradicating extreme poverty. The government of Cameron should consider the following actions as policy recommendations;
6.1 Investment in the Agricultural sector: The hikes in prices of basic household commodities should be taken like advantages to the government. Being an agricultural led economy with 42% of GDP coming from agricultural activities and the same sector employing 70% of the total population ( World Fact book, 2009). The government should increase investments in the agricultural sector by increasing the budget of the agricultural sector. The sector should not be limited only to the primary production, but should go a long way mechanizing our primary products to host of secondary products Cameroon imports.
6.2 Investment in the grain and other sector: Even thou Cameroon have the potential to produce grains, the country keeps on depending on the importation of grains from other countries for example rice, flour etc. The government should design policies that will ensure investments into these sectors, encouraging small farmers already in the sector by use of agro-machinery and availability of credits for investments.
6.3 Reforms: the government of Cameroon should focus on reforms such as; land and water management; trade and marketing infrastructure; food and nutrition security; agricultural research and technology. These reforms existed before the structural adjustment programs which started in 1992.
6.4 Comprehensive focus on food security: This involves including programs like; irrigation schemes, investment on the use of organic fertilizers, marketing and rural roads.
If the above strategies are fully implemented, monitored and evaluated, the government Cameroon will not only address its food security issues. Current unemployment of 30% will be highly curb and overall standard of living of the country will be improved, enabling it to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) of 2015. With the strategic location of Cameroon in Central Africa, we will become a potential market for agricultural products in the region.

7.0 Bibliography
Javier Blas in London and Isabel Gorst in Moscow, Wheat prices in biggest one-day rise
the Financial Times, Published: February 25 2008.
Websites
http://www.everyculture.com/Bo-Co/Cameroon.html
http://www.ifad.org/operations/pipeline/pa/cm.htm
http://www.theodora.com/wfbcurrent/cameroon/cameroon_people.html

Effects of Climate Change in the Agricultural Sector in Cameroon, its implication to sustainable economic growth and policy implications

2010-02-19T16:50:00.000-08:00

Effects of Climate Change in the Agricultural Sector in Cameroon, its implication to sustainable economic growth and policy implications

1.0 Introduction
According to Global Village website by ( Halleson Durrel. N., 2008) the concept climate change was first coined by the Swedish Chemist and Nobel Laureate, Svante Arrhenius dating to almost a century ago. ( Halleson Durrel, 2008), emphasis that, the Nobel Laureate forecasted that, the continuous accumulation of carbondioxide in the atmosphere as a results of man’s activities will lead to global warning especially, the carbondioxide resulting from industrial activities during that time. Today, climate change has become an international concept; affecting people all over the world in various forms, and as years goes by, its impact on man, plant and animals continue to increase. Cameroon remain highly affected with climate change, as well as any other developing, developed and under-developed country. The impact on developing countries are however, devastated due to limited adaptation strategies in their economies. The agricultural sector is a very important sector in Cameroon, and according to the ( World Fact book, 2009), it contributes 42% of the total GDP, and employs 70% of the total population . This is to say that, in the absence of the agricultural sector in Cameroon, there will be complete reign in Cameroon’s development strategies as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will drastically drop. The main aim of this paper is to examine the effects of climate change in the agricultural sector of Cameroon. Being a very important sector, it is necessary to examine anything that has the possibilities of destroying the sector, so that strategies could be identified to mitigate the impact at the early stage before the whole sector is affected.

2.0 Concept of climate change
Based on the Department of Ecology, State of Washington website, 2009 http://www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange, climate change can be define as :
“ Climate includes patterns of temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind and seasons. "Climate change" affects more than just a change in the weather, it refers to seasonal changes over a long period of time. These climate patterns play a fundamental role in shaping natural ecosystems, and the human economies and cultures that depend on them. Because so many systems are tied to climate, a change in climate can affect many related aspects of where and how people, plants and animals live, such as food production, availability and use of water, and health risks”.
From the above definition of climate change, one can begin to understand that, climate change is a problem that affects more than one spectrum of the wellbeing of humanbeings in an economy. These effects Ranges from food production, to use of water as well as health risk. These three concepts are highly interrelated and support each other in one way or the other, especially in poor nations like Cameroon.
1)Food availability 2)use of water 3)health risk
Figure 1: Analysis of the flow effect of climate change in Cameroon
From the above analysis on figure one, all three components are related to one another and the effect of one component highly affects the other. If due to climate change, food availability is affected and there is reduction in the yield of crops, this directly translates into poor health, as families will not have enough to eat, enough to sell and enough to keep for off-seasons. This is the case in Cameroon, especially in rural areas that are agricultural dominated. If because of climate change, water sources are affected, this becomes a serious problem for both plant and animals. Plants will not grow well and animals will die due to lack of water, this will translate to health risk, and reduction in food availability, if in the other hand, there is over flooding of rivers, it will results to loss of farm lands, homes/properties and lives. For example in 2002, in my villages, Njenacha in the Southwest province of Cameroon, there was overflowing of many rivers, anticipated to be cause by climate change. This resulted to wide loss of property and farmlands and the end effect of this was drastic hunger and poverty in the village that year.
3.0 Effect of climate change in the Agricultural Sector in Cameroon
The agricultural sector in Cameroon, remains the most important sector in Cameroon economy and the main determinant of economic growth and wellbeing of Cameroonian. Based on the (United Nation World Food Program (UNWFP) website, 2009), Cameroon is ranked 144th out of 177 countries in the Human Development Report. Statistics shows that, in 2007, 40.2% of the 16million people who live in Cameroon, where living below the poverty line define as living on less than a dollar per day, of which 52.1 per cent of this population live in the rural areas of the country, with their main activities, source of income and livelihood being agricultural activities. The website, (UNWFP website, 2007), further emphasis that, in 2009 the following were considered as threats to food security in Cameroon: i) poverty, ii) low agricultural technologies, iii) drought, iv) different access to food and v) deforestation. These effects were more severe in the northern part of the country than southern part. Among the five threats of food security in Cameroon illustrated by UNWFP, drought can be seen as the main cause resulting from climate change. Lukong Puis.N., 2008 in a report to Cameroon Tribune on the first ever forest day organized in Yaounde in April 2008, concludes that, the recent climate change characteristics in Cameroon had being early rains/late rains, and increase in temperature.
Early rains and increase in temperatures seriously affects the agricultural sector. This is because, they either destroy mature food in the farm, or young seeds of crops. These two characteristics has the following effect on the agricultural sector: i) prevalence of harsh dry seasons and very heavy rains, ii) reduction in productivity of animals and fish species, iii) rise in sea levels, and iv) expansion of desert
3.1 Prevalence of harsh dry seasons and very heavy rains: Cameroon has two main seasons, the rainy and the dry season. The rainy season runs from April to October while the dry season runs from October to March each year. These two seasons are the main determinants of agricultural activities for farmers, each season timing determines what a farmer has to do, thus changes in these seasons is very detrimental to the functioning of farmers. By the beginning of the dry season, farmers are often involved in land preparations, seed gathering, farm tilling etc, awaiting the first rains for farming activities to start, this season is also characterized with harvesting of crops. The rainy season is the period that marks the planting of crops; this is often done at the beginning of the season, during the first month of the season that is April and May, before heavy rains come. The mid part of these seasons is often characterized by less food in local communities as crops are still growing. The above description of seasons in Cameroon has for centuries appear like that, before the coming of climate change. Climate change has caused either early rains or late rains, in some areas too much rain than anticipated and prolong dry season.
When there are early rains, crops planted in previous seasons are often destroy by the early rains, as this are often the periods farmers harvest and prepare their lands for the other season. Apart from crops being destroyed, farmers are often unable to prepare for the new farming season. These often result to hunger, poverty and very low standard of living in agriculture dependent communities. When rains are late in the other hand, seeds sow by farmers get dry off by the sun, this ends up most farmers with very poor harvest. Farmers in the northern provinces of Cameroon suffer more on this problem because of their already very high temperatures associated with symptoms of the desert approaching. This problem in Cameroon if not addressed can result to serious food insecurity issues, as emphasized by Molua and Utomakili(1998) in the article “Effect of Climate change on crop production in Cameroon” by Munang.T., Rivington. M. et al(2008), that the current population growth in Cameroon, associated with low levels of inputs, reduction in government subsidies( on quality seeds, fertilizers, pesticides), has translated to continuous reduction in per capital food production in the country.
3.2 Reduction in productivity of animals and fish species: The harsh climate condition in Cameroon highly affects the capacity for animals and fishes to reproduce and produce viable offspring. This has result to limited quantity of fish and animals products in markets, resulting to price hikes cause by increase demand with no corresponding increase in supply. Most poor household have preferred to eat food without meat or fish, does lacking the basic nutrient of protein. In forest communities, hunting have increased drastically, the poor farmers cannot afford for fish, poisoning of rivers has also increased.
3.3 Rising sea levels: This has a tremendous effect on farms closer to rivers and oceans in Cameroon. The rising in seas levels has swept most farms, like the case in Limbe in 2003, which result to loss in properties, and farms next to the Ocean and in Lebialem division in 2001.
3.4 Expansion of desert: This is especially very common in the three northern province of Cameroon. This region frequently suffers from drought in most agricultural seasons. The northern provinces of Cameroon are bordered by the Sahara desert, the accompanying Sahel effects are moving downwards toward the region, affecting directly or indirectly agricultural activities in the region. Due to this effect, this region has constantly depended on food aid from the United Nation World Food Program.
4.0 Implications for Development and Sustainable economic Growth
Facts from the ( World Fact book, 2009) shows that 42% of the GDP of the Republic of Cameroon comes from the agricultural sector, this same sector employs 70% and above of the total population of Cameroon. Yet this same sector is the highest sector affected by climate change. If the government of Cameroon and its policy makers do not design policies that will go a long way to support climate change adaptation and others that prevent it, there is abundant evidence that Cameroon may not be able to attain the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2015, aiming at eradicating extreme poverty. Therefore sustainable economic growth will be very difficult to achieve. This is because, if the agricultural sector is highly affected and productivity drops consistently, millions of Cameroonians will go hungry, poverty will increased drastically, unemployment will be at its peak, instead of the government to spend on social and infrastructure, spending will be focus towards importing food from abroad and prices of food will continue to go up.
4.0 Conclusion and Policy Recommendation
Climate change remains a serious threat to the agricultural sector in Cameroon. The following policy recommendations maybe considered by the government of Cameroon, development partners and policy makers in order to address this problem before it become drastic.
5.1 Design programs to support Research: research should be supported in Cameroon, in order to come up with concrete evidence effects of climate change on agriculture in the various parts of the Country and also the experimentation of adaptation strategies. This will help in the designing of adaptation strategies that are compactable with the different agricultural areas in Cameroon. Farmers already suffering from the problem of climate change, could be educated on how to adapt the adaptation strategies.
5.2 Investments in the Agricultural Sector: The government should increase investments in the agricultural sector by increasing the budget of the agricultural sector. The sector should not be limited only to the primary production, but should go a long way mechanizing our primary products to host of secondary products Cameroon imports from other countries. This will bring down prices of certain products, already affected by climate change.
5.3 Promote education to reduce domestic causes of climate change: domestic causes of climate change such as deforestation; slash and burn agricultural techniques; use of chemical fertilizers etc, need to be eradicated. This can only be achieved through massive education both in the rural and urban areas. The government through this process can engaged in aforestation of most region facing threats of desertification.
5.4 Engaged all actors through country campaigns: this problem cannot be address by the government alone, this is because it is difficult for the government to be everywhere. However, for communities to have ownership on this good course of addressing climate change there must be involved at all levels of planning up to implementations. The government should therefore engage; community leaders, non- governmental organizations, religion leaders, youth groups, women groups etc, in all campaigns on climate change, from planning to implementation.

6.0 Bibliography
Halleson Durrel.N. (2008) : Fueling Climate Change: Cameroon’s Skewed Energy
Policy retrieved on the 14 of December, 2009 from
http://www.globalvillagecam.org/index.php?menu=article&elt=8

Munang.T., Rivington.M. et al, (2008). Effect of Climate change on Crop Production in
Cameroon. Agriculture and Environmental Science Division. School of Bioscience,
Univrsity of Nothingham, Nothingham NG7 2RD UK.

Websites
http://www.wfp.org/countries/cameroon
http://allafrica.com/stories/200802081007.html http://www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange

Relationship between environment and poverty

2010-02-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

Relationship between environment and poverty

1.0 Introduction

The majority of the 2.6 billion people surviving on less than $2 per day live in rural areas. In Cameroon, rural communities account for 45 percent of the total population and 87 percent of the people living in poverty. The half of the population living in rural areas is isolated and particularly vulnerable to poverty and health issues, (Germen Foundation website, 2009). Without viable alternatives, the rural poor often pursue short-term moneymaking and survival strategies, such as slash-and-burn agriculture and illegal logging. These practices trigger a downward spiral of environmental destruction and desperate poverty. Socio-economic research by the Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF, 2006/2007) across the Western Cameroon forest area shows that most of the areas considered as biodiversity hot spots are located in communities suffering from extreme poverty, that most often live on less than a dollar per day. With the absence of other survival means, these poor people are forced into economic activities on the land that often results to rapid environmental degradation and loss of endangered species. With the above findings, this paper is trying to look at a relationship between poverty and environmental conservation in the Western Cameroon forest highland and the possibilities of mitigating environmental degradation by addressing poverty in the region through alternative livelihoods programs.
1.1 What is Environmental Degradation?
Environmental destruction according to the World Centre is define as the process whereby, the planet's natural ecosystems and regenerating bio-capacity are being severely degraded and as a result, this compromises the ability of the planet to sustain life. Forests, fisheries, oceans, rangeland, fresh water systems (lakes, wetlands, rivers) and other natural ecosystems are all threatened while many are on the verge of collapse. Water, land and air are getting increasingly polluted, water tables are falling, soil erosion is leading to desertification, global warming is well underway, and species are dying out 1000 times faster than their natural rate of extinction.
1.2 Causes of Environmental Destruction in Cameroon
Socio-economic research by Environment and Rural Development Foundation in the Western Cameroon Forest Area 2004-2008 shows that, the main causes of forest/environment degradation and disappearance of species are: logging, unsustainable hunting, unsustainable fishing, industrial development, agricultural activities as well as government policies.
1.2.1 Logging
The richness of the Western Cameroon Forest attracts numerous commercial logging companies, which engaged in cutting down mature trees that have been selected for their timber. The timber trade defends itself by saying that this method of 'selective' logging ensures that the forest regenerates naturally and in time, and is once again ready for their 'safe' logging practices (WWF, 2008). In most cases, this is untrue due to the nature of rainforests and of logging practices. Large areas of rainforest are destroyed in order to remove only a few logs. The heavy machinery used to penetrate the forests and build roads causes extensive damage. Trees are felled and soil is compacted by heavy machinery, decreasing the forest's chance for regeneration. The felling of one 'selected' tree, tears down with it climbers, vines, epiphytes and lianas. A large hole is left in the canopy and complete regeneration takes hundreds of years.
Removing a felled tree from the forest causes even further destruction, especially when it is carried out carelessly, like the case in the Western Cameroon Forest Area. This is particularly cause with the hilly and rocky nature of the landscape where logging take place. Destruction is not only destroying only trees, endangered species of animals found in the forest along side are destroyed as their habitats are destroyed. The tracks made by heavy machinery and the clearings left behind by loggers are sites of extreme soil disturbance which begin to erode in heavy rain. This causes siltation of the forests, rivers and streams. The lives and life support systems of indigenous people of Western Cameroon are disrupted as is the habitat of hundreds of birds and animals. Little if any industrial logging of tropical forests is sustainable. The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the body established to regulate the international trade in tropical timber, found in 1988 that the amount of sustainable logging was "on a world scale, negligible". "Logging roads are used by landless farmers to gain access to rainforest areas. For this reason, commercial logging is considered by many to be the biggest single agent of tropical deforestation"
Apart from its direct impact, logging plays a major role in deforestation through the building of roads which are subsequently used by landless farmers to gain access to rainforest areas. These displaced people then clear the forest by slashing and burning to grow enough food to keep them and their families alive, a practice which is called subsistence farming. This problem is so widespread that Robert Repetto of the World Resources Institute ranks commercial logging as the biggest agent of tropical deforestation. Most of the rainforest timber on the international market is exported to rich countries. There, it is sold for hundreds of times the price that is paid to the indigenous people whose forests have been plundered. The timber is used in the construction of doors, window frames, crates, coffins, furniture, plywood sheets, chopsticks, household utensils and other items. Logging doesn’t only ends in destroying tropical forest, it also goes a long way to expose endangered species to hunters resulting to extinction of most species. Research by ERuDeF, 2008 shows that, the main causes for the disappearance of the Critically Endangered Cross River gorilla in the Western Cameroon Forest Area is the creation of the logging concession separating the Mbayand-Mbo forest block from the Lebialem-Mone forest block.
1.2.2 Agriculture - Shifted Cultivators
'Shifted cultivators' is the term used for people who have moved into rainforest areas and established small-scale farming operations. These are the landless peasants who have followed roads into already damaged rainforest areas. The additional damage they are causing is extensive. Shifted cultivators are currently being blamed for 60% of tropical forest loss (Colchester & Lohmann). This is a very common practice in the Bechati-Fossimondi-Besali Forest block in the Western Cameroon Forest Area. The reason these people are referred to as 'shifted' cultivators is that most of the people have over exhausted the piece of lands they use for agriculture due to rudimentary techniques of agriculture. This opportunity is usually created by logging companies by creating them roads. They became 'shifted cultivators', moving into rainforest areas of which they had no previous knowledge in order to sustain themselves and their families (Colchester & Lohmann). After a time, these farmers encounter the same problems as it happens to their previous farms. The soil does not remain fertile for long. They are forced to move on, to shift again, going further into the rainforest and destroying more and more of it. It is evident that the shifted cultivators "have become the agents for destruction but not the cause (Westoby 1987: Colchester). Shifted cultivators do not move into pristine areas of undisturbed rainforests. They follow roads made principally for logging operations. "Shifted cultivators are often used by the timber industry as scapegoats". Yet logging roads lead to an estimated 90% of the destruction caused by the slash-and-burn farmers (M.Colchester, 1991). Most of the farms found in the Lebialm-Mone forest block by ERuDeF in it 2008 research where along the roads constructed by logging companies.
1.2.3 Firewood
The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that '1.5 billion of the 2 billion people worldwide who rely on firewood for cooking and heating are overcutting forests. This problem is worst in drier regions of the tropics, for example Cameroon. Solutions will probably involve a return to local peoples' control of the forests they depend on. Research by ERuDeF shows that, 99% of the population of Western Cameroon forest region uses firewood as a means for heating and cooking and 1% of these population uses a mixture with some other cooking and heating methods.
1.2.4 Tourism
The creation of national parks by the government of Cameroon has undoubtedly helped to protect rainforests. Yet, as national parks are open to the public, tourism is damaging some of these areas. Often, national parks in the Western Highland Forest Area of Cameroon are advertised to tourists before adequate management plans have been developed and implemented. Inadequate funding is allocated for preservation of forests by government departments. Governments see tourism as an easy way to make money, and therefore tourism is encouraged whilst strict management strategies are given far less government support. Ecotourism, or environmentally friendly tourism, should educate the tourists to be environmentally aware. It should also be of low impact to its environment. Unfortunately, many companies and resorts who advertise themselves as eco-tourist establishments are in fact exploiting the environment for profit. In Mount Cameroon area in Cameroon for example, the rainforest is being threatened by excessive tourism. Clearing for roads and pollution of waterways are two of the major problems in this area. The Wet Tropics Management Authority which oversees the surrounding World Heritage Area is promoting tourism to the area before any management plans have been formulated, before any effective waste management strategy has been devised and before any eco-friendly power alternatives have been fully explored. This is very common in the Western Cameroon Forest Area, with the creation of Mt Cameroon National Park and the Mbomboko Forest Reserve, which already attracts a significant number of tourists, yet these parks do not have any services to ensure environmental friendly tourism like waste management systems.
1.2.5 Excessive use of renewable resources
Low-income urban dwellers in the Western Cameroon Highlands Forest adjacent communities have much lower levels of consumption than middle and upper income groups next to these communities. They use much less freshwater, although this is more due to inconvenient and/or expensive supplies than need or choice. They occupy much less land per person than middle and upper income groups – in extreme cases, the poorest 30-50 percent of a city’s population live on only 3-5 percent of the city’s land area. Low income groups consume less food and generally have diets that are less energy and land intensive than higher income groups. There are cases of low income populations depleting renewable resources in the area- for instance where low income settlements have developed around reservoirs into which they dump wastes or where low income settlements have developed on slopes which, when cleared for housing, contribute to serious soil erosion (and the clogging of drains) but these are problems caused more by the failure of urban authorities to ensure lower income groups to find safer residential sites. In many low income communities of the Western Cameroon Forest Area, many urban dwellers use fuel wood or charcoal for cooking (and where needed heating) and this may contribute to deforestation - although these fears have often proved to be without foundation.

1.2.6 Waste generation
Low-income groups in the forest adjacent communities of Western Cameroon Forest Area generate much less waste per person than middle and upper income groups. The urban poor generally have an ecologically positive role as they are the main declaimers, re-users and recyclers of wastes from industries, workshops and wealthier households. It is likely to be middle and upper income groups who consume most of the goods whose fabrication generates most toxic or otherwise hazardous wastes or persistent chemicals whose rising concentration within the environment has worrying ecological and health implications. There are small-scale urban enterprises (including illegal or informal enterprises) which cause serious local environmental problems for instance contaminating local water sources, but their contribution to city-wide pollution problems relative to other groups is usually small. In addition, one cannot ascribe the pollution caused by small scale enterprises to the urban poor when many such enterprises are owned by middle or upper income groups. Excessive pollution in rivers in the Western Cameroon Forest Area are cause by the CAMEROON Development Cooperation, They have render many small springs and water sources undrinkable.

1.2.7 Uncontrollable use of non-renewable resource
Most of the houses in which low income groups live (and often build for themselves) use recycled or reclaimed materials and little use of cement and other materials with a high energy input. Low income households have too few capital goods to represent much of a draw on the world’s finite reserves of metals and other non-renewable resources. Most low income groups in urban areas rely on public transport (or they walk or bicycle) which means low average figures for oil consumption per person. On average, they have low levels of electricity consumption on average, not only because those who are connected use less but also because a high proportion of low income households have no electricity supply. So they are responsible for very little of the fossil fuel use that arises from oil, coal or gas fuelled power stations (and most electricity is derived from such power stations).

2.0 Relationship between poverty and the environment
Many international reports claim that poverty is a major cause of environmental degradation, including the World Commission on Environment and Development’s report, Our Common Future and UNEP’s Geo 2000. There is very little evidence that this is actually the case on a global scale either in rural areas or in urban areas. In urban areas, it is overwhelmingly the consumption patterns of non-poor groups (especially high income groups) and the production and distribution systems that serve them that are responsible for most environmental degradation. The urban poor contribute very little to environmental degradation because they use so few resources and generate so few wastes. There is a strong association between environmental health problems and urban poverty and the confusion between environmental health risk and environmental degradation’ may explain why urban poverty is thought to contribute to environmental degradation. But the two should not be confused. Most environmental health risks pose no threats to environmental degradation. Environmental degradation is usually understood in terms of high use of scarce nonrenewable resources, damage or destruction of key renewable resources (such as soils, forest etc) and the generation of wastes that are not easily assimilated or broken down by natural processes. So let’s consider the role of urban poverty in each of these.

3.0 Conclusion
An analysis of the various causes of environmental destruction in the Forest Western Cameroon Forest Region as outline above are: Uncontrollable use of non-renewable resource, Greenhouse gas emissions, Waste generation, Tourism, Agriculture - Shifted Cultivators etc, we can draw conclusions that, there is a very limited relationship between poverty and environmental destruction and very limited findings of causality where realized during my research findings. Biodiversity loss and poverty in the Western Cameroon Forest Area of Cameroon are two linked problems rather than simple causal relationships. The quality of governance appears to be critical to both. Interventions in both arenas have the potential to be mutually reinforcing. Poverty may contribute to biodiversity loss, but it is only one of a number of factors. Whether poor people conserve or over-exploit biodiversity is dependent on specific circumstances and contexts and particularly on the influence of external governance factors and not a question to which a generalized answer can be given.

Bibliography

Roe Dilys and Elliot Joanna. (2005). Poverty-Conservation Linkages: A Conceptual
Retrieved October 2009 ://www.povertyandconservation.info/httpdocs/200511-
Conceptual_Framework(Roe-Elliott).pdf

http://www.grameenfoundation.org/our-impact/bosede-ogunleye-nigeria

M. Lohmann and L.Colchester. (Eds.), The Struggle for Land and Fate of the Forest. World
Rainforest Penang Malaysia. The Ecologist, Sturminter Newton and Zed Books Ltd,
London 1993. Retrieved November 2009,
http://forestry.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/67/2/167

About me

2010-02-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

Stella Ajabji is a socio-economic researcher, community based development practitioner and a social entrepreneur with experience in gender issues, poverty alleviation. She has the insight, vision, and enthusiasm necessary to inspire teams and garner impressive in result oriented development. With a history in microfinance and enterprise development in resources limited communities for over 5years. She has significant expertise in appreciative inquiry, positive deviance, strategic planning, financial management/budgeting personnel management, donor fundraising, business planning, and value chain approach in development working both for national and international non-profits.