Ocean Division: Traditional rulers, community leaders empowered on accessing forestry, land concessions benefits.

The workshop is a follow-up of a tripartite crisis meeting between local communities, agro-industrial company, CAMVERT, and local administration after a protest action on January 17, 2025, by locals. 

Locals had expressed their dissatisfaction with CAMVERT's failure to comply with the specifications and promises made at the start of the project. 

The promises and specifications are contained in the corporate social responsibility document known in French as Cahiers des Charges. 

At the opening of the Kribi workshop, the participants from the affected villages were presented an information guide on accessing the benefits of their forestry and land usage. 

In her presentation, the Project Assistant at GDA, Kengmo Marie Clarissa, highlighted the laws governing land and forest management, as well as how financial benefits are distributed and calculated. 

“What are the percentages, who is entitled to what, and who are the different actors who should benefit from land and forest revenues?...it is on the forestry law that we try to identify which assets in the finance law should better manage the distribution of profits,” she said. 

With the evolution of certain finance laws, she explained that local communities were excluded from the sharing of profits from their forest and land concessions at a certain point until the communities, together with some organisations, pressured the state to be included.

“They also saw that they had to put communities first, even through community projects,” Kengmo stated. 

In spite of this, recent research by the non-governmental organisation revealed an unequitable distribution of royalties to communities.

“We realised that in a logging sale (UFA) that has 7 million FCFA annual forest royalties, there are two communities that benefit and have almost 130,000 francs in royalties each year to manage community projects. But what project, as we say, in two communities can be managed with 130,000 FCFA? So, it remains a limitation,” she explained.

Kengmo pointed that their study also showed the communities did not have reliable access to information about what they should benefit, how much they should benefit or how many cubic metres leave their community every day or week. 

“If they have access to this information, I believe they will be able to calculate their share themselves and contact the appropriate authorities to receive these benefits. So, it was really a moment to encourage them to be better informed and to raise their awareness of what they should receive each year,” she averred.

Enter GDA Coordinator representative

According to the representative of the GDA Coordinator, Ekane Nkwelle, one of the resolutions arrived at during the tripartite meeting last February was the harmonisation of the existing corporate social responsibility documents for the Mvae, Iyassa, and Bagili communities. 

“It looked as if they were experiencing separate impacts and as such these Cahiers des Charges were agreed to be harmonised. So, we are here today to follow up the implementation of all these resolutions that were taken and to find out from the communities’ representatives what has been done and what has evolved since the meeting we had with them in Kribi in December,” Ekane told The Guardian Post. 

It was averred during the meeting that CAMVERT, as promised in the corporate social responsibility logbook, some advancements had been made, though they remain largely unsatisfactory for the 19 affected villages. 

“I think generally the communities are still not satisfied because most of the resolutions that we're taking have not been respected. They're trying to call for meetings with the company, but they have not held any meeting with the company,” he added.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3552 of Tuesday September 02, 2025