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Countries in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) zone continue to endure challenges from low growth, high and persistent poverty, and a strong dependence on volatile oil markets. Well-designed fiscal policies, complemented by increased timber processing, can help build a sustainable timber industry while preserving the vast natural wealth of the Congo Basin.
The World Bank report notes that due to illegal logging, a large informal logging sector, revenue losses from indiscriminate use of tax incentives, and corruption, a significant portion of potential forestry revenue is lost. As a result, revenue from forestry represented a negligible 1% of total tax revenue and 0.2% of GDP in the Congo Basin countries in 2022.
In May 2023, Cameroon’s Douala Seaport came under scrutiny when a customs official stamped a shipment of timber, unveiling a complex web of illegal exports from West and Central Africa. This incident spotlighted the notorious Wagner Group’s involvement through Wood International Group, a company under US sanctions since last September. The Wagner Group’s operations in Africa, often in exchange for access to natural resources, underscore the blurred lines between legal and illicit economies.
Douala has long served as a critical juncture for illicit timber, sourced not only from Cameroon but also from neighboring countries, to be laundered through seemingly legal operations. Sawmills and warehouses proximate to Douala and Kribi ports facilitate this laundering, with China and Vietnam being the prime destinations for these exports.
Officials say most member states in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, CEMAC, have failed to honor a ban on raw timber exports that was enacted last year to conserve forests and create jobs by locally processing wood.
The six member countries of the Central African bloc agreed to ban raw timber exports starting in January 2022. The ban is aimed partially at combating climate change by protecting forests from excessive logging.
However, an online meeting of CEMAC forestry and finance ministers Thursday found that only Gabon and the Republic of Congo have suspended the timber exports to China and other Asian countries. Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad and Equatorial Guinea have not.
The deadline for implementing the ban was initially pushed back to January 2023 to give the CEMAC countries more time to comply. Motaze suggested the bloc push back the deadline again to 2025 so countries have more time to invest in wood processing equipment and in training workers.
In Central Africa, the ban on the export of logs will no longer take effect from 1 January 2022. The entry into force of this measure has been postponed to an unspecified date. This was the outcome of the 38th ordinary session of the Council of Ministers of the Economic Union of Central Africa (UEAC), which ended on 28 October 2022 in Yaoundé, Cameroon.
This is a retropalent for the countries of the Economic Union of Central Africa (UEAC). The entry into force of the ban on timber exports in the form of logs, which was set for 1 January 2023, has been postponed to a date yet to be determined.
In view of the entry into force, from January 1 2023, of the measure prohibiting the export of logs in the six CEMAC countries (Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Chad, CAR and Equatorial Guinea), a workshop devoted to the validation of the regional guidelines for taxation and forest certification is currently being held in Libreville.
Key Resources
Methodology
Data Tools
Click here to access the Global Illegal Logging and Associated Trade (ILAT) Risk assessment tool and to download the Forest Trends User Guide describing the functionality of the ILAT Risk Data Tool.
Click here to access the Cattle Data Tool.
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