Cameroon & Ambazonia

Once threatened by palm oil and loggers, Cameroon’s forests now face a new driver of deforestation: booming cacao production to supply the European market.

A new report by the environmental advocacy group Mighty Earth finds deforestation in Cameroon has accelerated, with the country losing around 782,000 hectares (1.9 million acres), or 4.2% of its forest cover, in just five years since 2020.

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• Mongabay article
• report cited

• Contrary to popular conception, Lake Chad is not shrinking; new research shows that the volume of water in the lake has increased since its low point in the 1980s.
• However, more intense rain in the region, coupled with the impacts of historic drought, increases the risk of flooding.
• The region is also plagued by continuing conflict and insecurity, making to harder for people to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
• A Lutheran World Federation project is working with communities in the Lake Chad Basin on sustainable agriculture and fisheries, land restoration, conflict resolution and more.

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• Wildlife in the heart of the Congo Basin, an area that stretches from western and southern Cameroon to northeastern and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, are most at risk from the expansion of cacao cultivation, a recent study found.
• Cameroon, the world’s fourth-largest cacao producer, wants to double its output by 2030 — an ambition at odds with the country’s stubbornly low yields, changing climatic conditions, and the demand for “deforestation-free” cocoa from consumer nations.
• “Cameroon has little area available for agricultural expansion outside forests,” Marieke Sassen, a co-author of the new study, told Mongabay.
• Three-quarters of Cameroon’s cocoa is destined for the European Union, which passed a regulation in 2023 to ban imports of cocoa produced on recently deforested or degraded forestland.

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• The Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI) and the Cameroon government have signed a $60 million agreement they say will fund the development of cacao and coffee production, as well as protect the country’s forests.
• The fund will support projects aimed at sustainably raising production from existing agricultural land, rather than expanding into forested areas.
• Cameroonian forestry expert Ghislain Fomou says it’s unclear if cacao and coffee production can be increased without causing more deforestation.

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• A new survey finds that populations of forest elephants, lowland gorillas and chimpanzees have remained relatively stable in a large landscape in southeastern Cameroon.
• In some cases, populations actually rose significantly in the region’s protected areas, but declined on the outskirts.
• Officials attribute this “positive” trend to hard work and the implementation of a “permanent presence technique” to deter poaching by engaging more closely with local communities.
• However, they say more effort is still needed to combat poaching for tusks and the trafficking of great apes.

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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/14986553

Archived version

In an interview with the French publication “Le Parisien”, Brenda Biya, the daughter of Cameroonian President Paul Biya, explains why she came out, what her family’s response has been, and how she hopes to make a difference for Cameroon’s LGBTQ community. This is an English translation of that interview.

• Cameroonian villagers protesting on March 25 against plantation company Socapalm’s replanting of oil palm trees on disputed land were dispersed with tear gas by local law enforcement.
• Socapalm rejects the villagers’ claim that the company was supposed to return this land following an amendment to its lease, explaining that this part of the plantation is not leased.
• Gendarmes escorted Socapalm workers despite a local official’s previous statement that replanting required an agreement with villagers.
• Socfin, Socapalm’s parent company, has been accused of land grabbing and human rights abuses, with investigators confirming many community grievances at its Cameroon plantations.

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• For several years, coastal communities in Edéa, Cameroon, have been campaigning for the return of land they say Socapalm, a subsidiary of Luxembourg-based Socfin, illegally seized from them.
• Now a series of reports published by environmental consultancy the Earthworm Foundation in February have substantiated new allegations land grabbing and of sexual harassment on Socapalm’s oil palm plantations.
• The Socfin group requested Earthworm’s investigations of its subsidiaries’ operations in Cameroon and elsewhere; following the release of the latest findings, the group has announced the launch of quarterly action plans aimed at addressing the rights violations.
• Financial institutions that have backed Socfin declined to say how they will in their turn respond to findings that show that guidelines for ethical investment have not been effective across Socfin’s operations in West and Central Africa, as well as Asia.

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